Australian Football

Ray Boyanich was a tall, high leaping, strong marking ruckman who also adapted well to other positions, such as back pocket, ruck-rover and anywhere across half forward. He made his senior League debut with West Perth in 1964 and spent five seasons with the club in this initial stint, performing well enough to gain selection for Western Australia in 1968. Keen to carve out a career for himself in the VFL he spent the 1969 season playing reserves football for Hawthorn only to be dropped from the list at the end of the year. Richmond had obviously seen something they liked, however, because the 1970 season saw him lining up with the Tigers and he immediately stamped himself as a player of promise, winning the club's best first year player award, and going on to play 61 VFL games in three seasons. The last of these games was the 1972 grand final loss to Carlton after which he was somewhat unfairly made a scapegoat, and sacked.

The 1973 season found Boyanich at Woodville where he endured a somewhat testing time, playing just 22 SANFL games in his debut year and 1975. Nevertheless, Richmond decided to take another punt on him in 1976 but some of the sparkle had clearly gone and he managed only five appearances for the year. He then rounded off his career with four more seasons back at West Perth taking his final tally of games with that club to 108. Earlier, he had spent a couple of seasons playing in Darwin for Nightcliff.

Author - John Devaney