Australian Football

Quick, clever and hardy, Fitzroy's Jimmy Freake was a goalsneak par excellence who arguably vied with Collingwood's Dick Lee as the premier full forward of his era. Standing only 178cm in height and weighing only 63kg, he relied more on his pace and ball skills than his marking ability, and his acceleration when leading was phenomenal. Typically, he would crouch low with his chest almost scraping the turf and hurtle straight down the ground leaving the full back in his wake. Teammates like Percy Parratt knew that if they kept their passes low, fast and hard then Freake's small but vice-like hands, coupled with his incomparable manoeuvrability, would do the rest. His kicking for goal, whether using place kicks or punts, was unfailingly accurate. He was also a genuinely two-sided player who could snap goals from all angles.

Freake topped the VFL's goal kicking ladder in 1913 with 56 goals and again two years later with 66. He was Fitzroy's leading goal kicker seven times, and won the club's 1918 best and fairest award. His 174 VFL games included membership of the Maroons' 1913 and 1922 premiership teams. He kicked 442 goals during his career, which ran between 1912 and 1924, at the impressive rate for the time of 2.54 per game.

Author - John Devaney