Australian Football

Brian Sawley was an accomplished all round footballer who tended to come most conspicuously to the fore when the going was willing. Between 1954 and 1964 he played a total of 138 league games for Norwood while his 11 interstate appearances included matches at the 1958 Melbourne carnival as well as both meetings with the VFL in 1963. South Australia won the first of these 1963 encounters, in Melbourne, by seven points, with Sawley starring on a half forward flank. In the return match, however, he found himself at the centre of controversy after being unceremoniously flattened by the VFL’s John Peck, who claimed that Sawley had kicked him. The VFL Tribunal clearly thought that mitigating circumstances had precipitated Peck’s behaviour as they handed down what, on the face of it, appeared to be the absurdly lenient sentence of just two weeks’ suspension.

Author - John Devaney