Australian Football

Polly says too much (1970 Tasmania v WA)

1970 Interstate Match: Tasmania vs. Western Australia

"If we can't beat Tasmania, we ought to give the game away."
- (Graham 'Polly' Farmer)

The victorious Tasmanians

BACK ROW (L-R): D.Baldock (vice-captain), M.Urquhart, J.Bingley, K.Edwards, J. Jillard
MIDDLE ROW (L-R): F.Newell (Head Trainer), R.Hall, A.Thiessen, A.Bowden, J. Frost, A.Hodgetts, L.Styles, P.Vinar, D.Plaister (Manager)
FRONT ROW (L-R): R.Johnson, J.Bonney, C.Coombes, R.Steele, J.Devine (captaincoach), J.Marshall, R.Graham, S.Dec, R.Stirling

What do the following footballers have in common? Fred McGinis, Laurie Nash, Verdun Howell, Bob 'Tassie' Johnson, Ian Stewart (right), Royce Hart, Brent Crosswell, Tim Evans, Noel Carter, Simon Atkins, Darrin Pritchard, Paul Hudson, Alastair Lynch, Matthew Richardson. More than one thing, actually, as it happens: all were either born in Tasmania or played their early football there; all achieved considerable notoriety in the game; and all, without exception, achieved most of that notoriety while playing outside Tasmania. This, in brief, has been the dilemma faced by Tasmanian football, and individual Tasmanian footballers, for well over a century. The quality of Tasmanian football has always been high - indeed, assessed on a per capita basis it would be very hard indeed to avoid the conclusion that, over the entire course of the twentieth century, Tasmania was actually the leading producer of top quality football talent in Australia. However, for a combination of social, political and economic reasons, the state has never managed to develop an internal infrastructure conducive to keeping the majority of its best players at home.

Despite this, Tasmania has managed a number of noteworthy achievements in the interstate arena. At the 1911 Adelaide carnival, for instance, the Tasmanians overcame Western Australia by 5 points. Other examples include the famous victory of Bill Mayman's 1923 TFL combination over a strong South Australian side on the Adelaide Oval; carnival victories over South Australia (1956 and '58) and Western Australia (1958); the York Park heroics of Stuart Spencer (left), Don Gale, Barry Strange, Neil Conlan et al against the mighty Big V in 1960; and the superbly gritty, against the odds display against reigning Australian champions Western Australia - and the elements - at Subiaco in 1963, which resulted in a win to Tasmania by 15 points. Arguably greater than all of these performances, however, was the win in 1970 against the visiting West Australians at North Hobart Oval. By this stage, the loss of players to the VFL, and other mainland competitions, had reached an all time high, with more than an entire team's worth of players plying their trade in Melbourne.

Other states had suffered at the hands of the Victorians too, of course. Western Australia, for instance, had roughly the same number of its players involved in the VFL as Tasmania, but with six times the population to draw from, the overall impact was proportionately reduced.

The Western Australians arrived in Hobart in confident frame of mind. On Saturday 12 June they had come closer than ever before to recording an upset victory over the VFL in Melbourne, ultimately losing by just 6 points despite managing 30 scoring shots to 24. Moreover, the last time Western Australia had played Tasmania, at the previous year's Adelaide carnival, the sandgropers had done virtually as they pleased all day en route to 113 point victory. As a result, team captain Graham 'Polly' Farmer (right)told the waiting pool of Tasmanian journalists that his side simply could not countenance anything other than a convincing win. "If we can't beat Tasmania, we ought to give the game away," he declared, presumably with the intention of thereby inspiring his West Australian team mates.

Well, the statement was inspirational all right, but it would not be the men in yellow and black jumpers who would be thanking Farmer after the game. Such provocative declarations have a strange tendency to back fire, it seems, and after the supposedly undermanned Tasmanians had played superbly to buck the odds with a 2 point win, 'Advocate' journalist Allan Leeson could not restrain himself from archly observing that, in lieu of Farmer's comments, "there are now 20 redundant interstate footballers".

The teams

Former Geelong player John Devine (North Hobart) was captain-coach of a Tasmanian side that boasted a predominance (more than 50%) of southern-based players. Like Devine, vicecaptain Darrell Baldock (pictured, top right) had considerable VFL experience, as did his Latrobe team mate John Jillard, Longford's Paul Vinar (left), New Norfolk's Ricky Graham, and Max Urquhart of Wynyard. The majority of the players, however, had spent their entire football careers in the Apple Isle.

Western Australia had a wealth of talent on every line, including one of the finest rovers in Australia, Bill Walker (right) of Swan Districts, two superlative ruckmen in 'Polly' Farmer and Bill Dempsey, both of West Perth, champion Perth wingman Greg Brehaut, and East Perth's redoubtable utility Malcolm Brown.

Match Report

From 'The Advocate' - by Allan Leeson

(This) will go down in history as one of the best ever performances by a Tasmanian team. In fact, it was only fourth victory against WA in the 16 clashes between the states since 1911.

Tasmania stole the game with phenomenal goal shooting and fierce tackling in the opening two and a half quarters, lost it late in the third and for most of the final quarter when it switched to fancy short passing, and won it again in a steamrolling final three minutes.

Two men held the game in their palms in the vital few minutes - West Australian centre half forward Mal Brown who had been switched to full forward, and Tasmanian half forward flanker John Bingley (left). Brown returned to the scene of his famous - or infamous (whichever way you look at it) - 1966 carnival stoush with Tasmanian Max McMahon to capture the lead for Western Australia for the first time with a goal 26 minutes into the final term. It was Brown's great marking and creative attacking - fired by replacement centreman Cam Blakemore - that nearly gave WA victory minutes before the final siren. It was Bingley's fanatical desire, marking and deciding kick that recovered the lead for Tasmania 30 seconds before the final siren.

Tasmania stole the game with phenomenal goal shooting and fierce tackling in the opening two and a half quarters, lost it late in the third and for most of the final quarter when it switched to fancy short passing, and won it again in a steamrolling final three minutes.

Two men held the game in their palms in the vital few minutes - West Australian centre half forward Mal Brown (right) who had been switched to full forward, and Tasmanian half forward flanker John Bingley. Brown returned to the scene of his famous - or infamous (whichever way you look at it) - 1966 carnival stoush with Tasmanian Max McMahon to capture the lead for Western Australia for the first time with a goal 26 minutes into the final term. It was Brown's great marking and creative attacking - fired by replacement centreman Cam Blakemore - that nearly gave WA victory minutes before the final siren. It was Bingley's fanatical desire, marking and deciding kick that recovered the lead for Tasmania 30 seconds before the final siren.

The big crowd of nearly 20,000 - only 4,000 short of the 1966 opening day carnival record of 23,754 - held its breath as Bingley marked with three minutes left. Bingley, of all people, a natural backman and notoriously bad kick for goal. Sure enough, his kick flew wide and fell short for Frost to miss and Marshall to pick up the crumbs and kick a point.

The crowd had almost given up hope as the precious minutes ticked by and WA recovered again for Brown to mark, a long way out, but within kicking distance. But he too was off target, for a point. All hope seemed lost as Longford coach Paul Vinar, considered by many as the best Tasmanian afield, kicked off. The former national long distance champion, as usual, put plenty of distance into the lofty kick. The ball flew to the wing, Stirling grabbed it, Devine (left) chipped in and found Baldock, who hit Bingley on the chest about 40 yards out on a flank.

Could he or couldn't he? This was the big question in one of the most tense finished seen in an interstate game in Tasmania. Bingley did and the wild scenes of jubilation among players and thousands of spectators as the siren sounded 30 seconds later reflected the pleasure of everyone at the ground. Veteran pressmen said it was the best reception ever given a Tasmanian team. Thousands poured onto the ground and clogged the entrances and even the timekeeper vented his feelings with a drawn out salute on the siren.

I believe the straight kicking for goal - it was uncannily accurate - and fierce tackling in the opening half.....played the biggest part in this victory.

In defence of WA it must be remembered that it was recovering from an equally torrid game against Victoria only two days previously. A game which robbed it of four of its star players - Denis Marshall, 'Hassa' Mann, Bradley Smith and Peter Stephen - all of whom were injured. The strange ground - and North Hobart can be strange to visiting teams - slippery surface and travelling are all factors which were against the sandgropers. Nevertheless, they had every opportunity and nothing can be taken away from Tasmania - generally regarded as the 'Cinderella' football state. The Tasmanians demonstrated a fanaticism and desire to win the ball rarely seen in state teams. They took the initiative from the first bounce, with Baldock, proving that he is far from 'too old' as claimed by some critics, and Devine the masterminds.

Rovers Bonney (right) and Marshall were in fine form and within five minutes the home side had two goals on the board. It went on to kick six goals from seven shots, while WA had only four shots, one of which was a 'poster'.

It was much the same in the second quarter, with full forward Athol Hodgetts also joining the spree. Hodgetts finished with 3.1 in his interstate debut - against the man who kept Hudson to only one goal on Saturday, John Reilly.

'Polly' Farmer's creative handball and strength in the ruck started to tell towards the end of this term, enabling bustling little rover Bill Walker - one of the stars of the 1969 Adelaide carnival - to come into his own.

The WAs whittled the lead away in the third term, but Tasmania was still well clear. Then at three quarter time WA made two changes which swung the game. Cam Blakemore replaced injured centreman Peter Manning and became the focal point of WA's thrusts to high marking Brown, who was moved to full forward. Ultimately, however, it was not quite enough.

Match Summary

BEST
Tasmania: Vinar, Bonney, Graham, Devine, Urquhart, Steele, Stirling, Baldock
Western Australia: Walker, Brown, Brehaut (left), A.Stiles, Farmer, Cooper, Blakemore

SCORERS
Tasmania: Bonney 4.1; Marshall 3.2; Hodgetts 3.1; Devine, Hall 2.1; Baldock, Stirling 1.1; Bingley, L.Styles 1.0; Frost 0.2
Western Australia: Carroll 3.1; Cooper 3.0; Walker 2.3; Brown, Smeath 2.2; Duperouzel 2.1; Blakemore, Farmer, Purton 1.0; Metropolis 0.3; Young 0.1; rushed 0.1

ATTENDANCE: 19,823 at North Hobart Oval