Greatest ever school teams: Messenger Community News picks Rostrevor and Sacred Heart colleges all-time best 22s
Which Adelaide school has produced the best footballers? Messenger Community News decided to try to answer this question by picking eight Adelaide schools’ greatest ever teams. Here are Rostrevor and Sacred Heart.
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It is a question that has been debated in local footy circles for decades.
Which Adelaide school has produced the best footballers?
Messenger Community News decided to try to answer this question by picking eight of Adelaide’s most renowned football schools’ greatest ever teams.
Selecting the 22s was an excruciatingly difficult task.
Who do you leave out?
Who plays where?
How do you compare a modern-day AFL player to a wartime football star?
There were countless discussions over a few months about players and filling positions.
But with the help of the schools, football-mad colleagues and SANFL club historians, particularly Rino Cialini and SANFL Budget editor Peter Cornwall, the squads have been chosen – and Messenger sports editor Matt Turner has made the final call.
The criteria settled on was to pick players based on their post-school football careers, not how they performed for the First XVIII.
Achievements also trumped ability, meaning present-day players at the start of their careers were often overlooked despite the possibility of future stardom.
Extra weight was given to players’ achievements before the formation of the Crows in 1991 but long-serving modern SANFL stars were also considered favourably.
Great careers that were cut short by war, injury or other factors were taken into account.
Team balance was important but not at the expense of reducing the quality of each side.
Ultimately, deciding on the final 22s came down to finding a lot of background information, getting plenty of feedback from footy followers of various vintages and gut feel.
We kick off the five-day online series with intercol rivals Rostrevor and Sacred Heart.
ROSTREVOR
ROSTREVOR College boasts an attack from the past, a modern-era defence and a midfield that is a nice blend of both.
The headline act of the team is SA football great Neil Kerley, who qualifies to be named as a ruck-rover and captain because of his two terms at the school.
Kerley would be looking to shark hit-outs from former Western Bulldogs skipper Luke Darcy, while ex-Glenelg and SA captain Peter Marker and durable Swans flag winner Jared Crouch would join them in the centre square.
Stan Jaffer, a South Adelaide captain of the 1930s and Magarey Medal runner-up, was a utility in his day but could start on a wing, along with Jack Doherty, a World War II era player.
Dual Crows premiership backman and four-time all-Australian Ben Hart is the tar of the defence, where he is joined by four recent names – the Power’s Mr Consistent Tom Jonas, his teammate Jack Hombsch, dual Port Magpies flag winner Tom Carr and reliable Bomber Henry Slattery.
Big man David Hynes fills a hole at centre half-back.
In attack are players who may not be as familiar to younger football followers.
Jim Michalanney, a four-time flag winner, was named at centre half-forward because of his exploits there for Norwood during the 1970s and ‘80s.
Peter Vivian made his name at the Redlegs in the two decades prior to Michalanney, mainly as a rover, but would alternate on-ball from a forward pocket in this team.
West Adelaide premiership half-forward Paul Garnett and the other flanker, ex-Norwood player and North captain/coach Peter Koerner, are of a similar vintage.
Garnett chalked up three state match during his 89-game career from 1959-63 and Koerner represented SA four times around the same period.
The side’s full-forward, George Margitich, starred between the two World Wars, leading South Adelaide’s goalkicking once (in 1929) and Melbourne’s three times (1930-32), before finishing with 267 majors from 75 games for the Demons.
Daniel Schell, a seven-time premiership spearhead at Central District, is the most recent of the forwards and slides into a pocket.
The bench features a 1980s ruckman (Richard Cousins), a modern-day big-bodied midfielder (Matthew Panos) and a forward (William Isaac) and utility (Bill Tonkin) from the 1930s and ‘40s.
Those closest to selection were North Adelaide’s Francis O’Leary, South Melbourne’s Elkin Reilly, former Bulldog, Rooster and Crow Tim Cook and ex-Norwood and South player Jack Sorrell.
Harry Petty and Darcy Fogarty are two Rostrevor old scholars to watch in the AFL in coming years but are yet to do enough to make this team.
All-Australians: 3 – Darcy,Kerley, Hart.
Magarey medallists: Nil.
Brownlow medallists: Nil.
SA Football Hall of Famers: 3 – Hart, Kerley, Marker.
SACRED HEART
ONE of the greats of the modern era and two famous SA families provide the backbone of Sacred Heart’s all-time team.
Matthew Pavlich, the Cornes brothers, Kane and Chad, and three generations of Gallaghers — “Sam”, his son Phil and grandson James – are all products of the 121-year-old Somerton Park school.
Pavlich once kicked 13 goals as a Year 10 for Sacred Heart then he went on to play 353 AFL games for Fremantle, kick 700 majors, gain six all-Australian selections and claim six Dockers best and fairests.
He is an obvious choice as Sacred Heart’s captain and centre half-forward.
Chad Cornes is a flag winner and all-Australian as a centre half-back, but the ex-Power and GWS star is named in this team at full-forward, a throwback to the beginning of his career, to accommodate ex-West Adelaide premiership backman Tony Burgess in defence.
Cornes’s younger brother, four-time Port Adelaide best and fairest Kane, is part of the on-ball brigade – and can also tag if the team needs.
Norwood Team of the Century member “Sam” Gallagher – the squad’s earliest player with 134 games and three flags for the Redlegs, along with 10 matches for SA from 1945-55 – starts in the middle, while his son, four-time premiership-winning Redleg Phil, is on a wing.
Glenelg’s longest-serving captain Nick Chigwidden would rotate onto the ball but was squeezed into a forward pocket by 1991 Magarey medallist and Carlton premiership winner Mark Naley.
Three-time Geelong flag hero Andrew Mackie is a no-brainer on a half-back flank and ex-Cats teammate Jared Rivers is the side’s full-back.
Port’s Hamish Hartlett (half-back), West Coast’s Jack Redden (bench) and West Adelaide’s ex-Crow Jason Porplyzia (forward pocket) are the three current players to get a guernsey.
Of those to have featured in the AFL, only Damian Kitschke (29 games) and James Gallagher (38) did not reach the 100-match milestone.
Kitschke fills a need in the ruck, while Gallagher’s SANFL career – 228 games for Norwood, captain from 2007-11, two best and fairests and a premiership – ensures he makes the cut.
Like Chigwidden, Greg Mellor never played in the AFL.
But Mellor is in West Adelaide’s Hall of Fame, is a state representative and a Bloods captain for five years, so with 313 goals from 198 games, books a spot on a half-forward flank.
Ex-West Adelaide duo David Bertelsmeier and Geoff Sara, Brisbane premiership winner Aaron Shattock, and Bays stalwart Simon Hele narrowly miss out on making the team.
Hawthorn’s Ryan Burton and Melbourne’s Alex Neal-Bullen loom as quality AFL players and are knocking on the door, but they are yet to achieve enough to date in their careers.
All-Australians: 5 – Chad Cornes, Kane Cornes, Mackie, Naley, Pavlich.
Magarey medallists: 1 – Naley.
Brownlow medallists: Nil.
SA Football Hall of Famers: 3 – Chad Cornes, Phil Gallagher, Naley.
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