Australian Football

Jack Dyer looks at Melbourne

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IT SEEMS I have been waiting most of my life for my Melbourne Cricket Club membership to be approved, and I don’t think I am any nearer to it now than when I first applied, but then I have never been terribly welcome at the sumptuous M.C.G. There was even a time when I was banned from entering the Melbourne footballers’ rooms because the gentlemen of the club considered me a ruffian and a bounder because of some of my clashes with their players. That was when Melbourne was a club for toffs and didn’t relish the sterner part of football. Their players would have been better suited to tennis.

But what a difference now!

Collingwood hate Melbourne and they always drag a superlative effort out of their bag of tricks when they clash with the Demons. For Melbourne have taken over the Collingwood mantle of greatness and are now setting the standards for other clubs to follow. For eleven years they have been the team to beat, but I suspect they must soon head for the decline and allow Geelong to take up their fallen banner.

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Frank 'Checker' Hughes

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You don’t get to the top by being nice fellows. Melbourne applaud the opposition, and take defeat well. That’s on the surface, underneath they smoulder. They have been ruthless in their determination to get to the top. When Checker Hughes went to the Demon camp from Richmond in 1933 the Melbourne side wasn’t expected to win matches. They were there solely for the amusement of members. All they had to do was to play up and play the game. Their record from 1926 was pathetic.

Melbourne also took our secretary, Perc Page, from us when they took Checker. They were taking good men who had put Richmond at the top of the ladder and it must have been a pretty hefty inducement to get them. Richmond were top dogs, Melbourne in the doldrums. Page and Checker decided on a three-year plan for the Melbourne side. They sacked the no-hopers and the has-beens and started from scratch.

They found it to be a tougher job than they first thought. Their three-year plan became a five-year plan. Checker brought big Johnny Lewis over from North Melbourne as a protector for the young players he was grooming. His days as a brilliant player were over, but he was there to do a job and he did the job well.

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Keith 'Bluey' Truscott

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Slowly they moulded a brilliant team. Wally Lock, Bluey Truscott, Mueller, Norm Smith, Baggott, Gibb, Tic Roberts, La Fontaine, Wartman, Barassi senior and Syd Anderson. This made up the best side Melbourne ever had. They won three Premierships on end and but for the war years they would have shattered Collingwood’s record by winning six on end.

A demonstration of their strength came after we shocked them in the 1940 semi-final. They flung six reserves into their Grand Final team and beat us as if we hadn’t turned up. I was supposed to be a high-flying ruckman and moved to a wing to take a mark over the Melbourne winger. I flew, and the higher I went, the higher their winger Wartman went. He took the mark. I didn’t relish that and sneaked over to the other wing and called for another mark. This time the other winger, Syd Anderson, flew feet above me to take it.

That’s what you had to put up with it. High-flying wingers, speedy forwards and all brilliant players. Anderson was the best-looking wingman I had seen for years and I have no doubt he would have been a great, but tragically he was killed in action. Melbourne suflered heavily in the war, losing a ready-made champion ruckman in Ball, Ron Barassi senior, Bluey Truscott and Syd Anderson. They were all killed in action and when you consider their courage you can understand why Melbourne were such a great side.

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Two of Melbourne’s greatest players were Allan La Fontaine and Jack Mueller. Fontaine when he joined Melbourne had a fantastic reputation in amateur ranks. They called him ‘little lollies’, he kicked goals in hundreds and thousands. I had encountered him in my schooldays.

Richmond players were all professionals and didn’t relish amateurs like La Fontaine keeping a bloke who needed the money out of the side. Fontaine had the misfortune to play his first V.F.L. game against Richmond when Bolger, Sheahan and O’Neill were at their peak and wouldn’t let the wind past in defence. La Fontaine was more on the ground than on his feet and proved in a very short time he would not make a League full-forward. The Richmond backmen chased him all day and they chased him so far he finished in the centre and that’s where Checker Hughes decided to leave him.

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La Fontaine had superb control. He could swing and sway out of trouble with little more than a shrug. He was an irritating player to the opposition. His action was slow and rhythmic and he never covered an unnecessary inch of ground. He had every angle covered and was an effortless footballer and when you tried to set him for a tackle he had no trouble in putting you off balance with a clever manoeuvre. Most irritating of all was the sneering, sardonic look as he made you look silly. Jack Mueller was another Melbourne player who mastered that sardonic appearance.

But even La Fontaine made his mistakes. He had an infuriating habit of poking the ball into an opponent’s face and then back-pedalling, leaving the player clutching at space and looking like an inexperienced waif from the bush having his first game. Players were hot on him, but they kept falling into the trap. Before the Richmond clash with Melbourne, Checker Hughes in the Melbourne rooms warned La Fontaine: ‘Don’t go poking the ball at Dyer or Bentley. They are experienced players and I taught them what to do to a bloke like you. Push the ball in their face and they’ll punch and they won’t care what they punch and they cannot be reported.’

In our room Perc Bentley was giving his pre-match instructions: ‘If that Fontaine starts poking the ball in your face making a fool of you, don’t mess around. Let your fist go and let it go hard. Punch at the ball, but if you miss, bad luck, you’ll hit him. He’s a sitter for this.’

The ball was bounced and was punched into the open. La Fontaine plucked it up and I ran in to tackle him and in trying for a bit more time to position himself he poked it at me. I hadn’t had time to forget Bentley's warning. I let fly with the fist and missed the ball by a fraction. The punch hit him right on the Adam’s apple and I snarled at him: ‘That’s for being a smartie. Do it to kids, not to me.’ I don’t think he heard me, he just kept choking, ‘Eerrggh, ergghh.’ The umpire cautioned me, but I just told him to wake up to himself, I had punched at the ball and missed.

La Fontaine was still squealing and holding his throat, but it cured him of that nasty habit, though he has never been really friendly with me since. Checker didn’t help relations when he snapped at the Melbourne centreman, ‘You wouldn’t be damn well told.’ Anyway, that punch did him some good. He always had a squeaky voice and the blow on the throat put a bit of a husk into it.

It has been a football mystery to me that the combination of Norm Smith and Jack Mueller worked so well. They were complete opposites. Smith was a colossal team man and Mueller an individualist with a supercilious sneer. But what a difference between Mueller on the field and off it. He is a good mixer and a likeable man, but on the field he was hated. He had some irritating habits, his worst being the elbow. However, he didn’t get away with it too often. He always seemed to be caught, probably because he didn’t do it properly and was too open. He made his tribunal appearances and took his stretches.

Still, he was a great player. He was a Premiership winner and Melbourne won Premierships with him that they should never have won. He was a great mark, which was amazing, because in his first year he lost two fingers on his right hand and it looked curtains for his career, but he came back and marked better than ever. He was forward pocket and ruck, and dangerous from any distance up to 65 yards from goal. A magnificent drop-kick and torpedo-punt expert.

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Norm Smith

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La Fontaine took over as coach from Checker and the bottom was falling out of Melbourne. He got the position on a very slender margin from Norm Smith and Norm immediately cleared to Fitzroy and took up coaching. Melbourne went so bad that Jack Mueller asked some Richmond players to visit the Melbourne ground on the Sunday after they lost their fifth successive match.

We had won five on end and Mueller wanted us to infuse some life into the club. George Smeaton took over a few players and made the Melbourne rooms jump. Both groups parted the best of friends. Then we struck a slump and in the closing stages of the season had to beat Melbourne to make the four. They beat us and wrecked our chances. We never accepted another invitation to cheer a club.

La Fontaine wasn’t getting results on the board and Smithy continued to practice coaching at Fitzroy while the hatchet men at Melbourne went to work on La Fontaine. Every club has a load of white ants, used to undermine coaches when they are going bad, they did the trick with La Fontaine just as I feel he was starting to get them rolling.

But it is a credit to Smithy’s coaching that he lifted the Demons from the bottom to the top in a couple of seasons and then kept them in the finals for eleven straight seasons. It proved once more you cannot get to the top without a good secretary and an inspiring player. He’s had them both in secretary Jim Cardwell and captain Ron Barassi. Barassi would have been a champion in any era and I have never seen a more dynamic and determined player. Any side with a Barassi in his prime must be a finals contender, because he lifts and inspires, making giants out of mediocre players.

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Ron Barassi

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Melbourne have even more than Barassi, Smith and Cardwell. They have the inducement of the sacred turf of the M.C.G., the facilities and the wealth. If they do slip it won’t be for long. And don’t forget they are still the club ruthless. They hate defeat. They pretend to be good sports in defeat, but don’t believe that. It hurts them more than it hurts any other side. A rich man hates going broke.

In spite of Smithy’s great record they’ll give him the La Fontaine treatment as soon as he shows signs of going soft and they have been grooming Noel McMahen for emergencies and protege Ron Barassi is another with his eyes on a coaching future. Still, I wonder if Barassi is Melbourne material. He is outspoken and impulsive and not the diplomat that fiery Norm is and I think Melbourne officials want a diplomat.

But Smith is not showing any signs of losing his ruthlessness. He sacks and drops players in the same merciless fashion he adopted when he began his reign. He leaves no stone unturned in keeping Melbourne on top.

That mild-mannered character with a pleasant word for everybody that you see on television is not Norm Smith the man. Behind that facade is Mr. Ruthless of football and I admire him and respect his ability. He is a fire-eating coach; he won’t tolerate shirkers and doesn’t accept excuses. The man who steps into his shoes will be struggling to emulate him. It is not a position l would like to take over.