Greatest ever school teams: Messenger Community News picks Prince Alfred and St Peter’s 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 the greatest ever teams from some of our strongest footy schools. Today are Prince Alfred College and St Peter’s College.
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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.
Next in the five-part series is Prince Alfred and St Peter’s colleges.
PRINCE ALFRED COLLEGE
PICKING Prince Alfred’s team starts with a big dilemma.
How do you fit in so many star ruckmen? And which ones miss out?
The Dequetteville Tce college has produced so many brilliant big men — South Adelaide greats Peter Darley and Alan Hickinbotham, Sturt champions Rick Davies and Tony “Doc” Clarkson, dual Crows premiership player David Pittman, 1982 Geelong best and fairest John Mossop, three-time Port flag winner Ian Hannaford and 1950s Norwood gun Graham Nicholls.
Not all of them made this side but most squeezed in, ensuring team balance was skewed and there was plenty of extra height across the ground.
Davies’ 781 goals for the Double Blues and South made him a walk-up start for full-forward, Hannaford spent a lot of his career at centre half-forward so he slotted in there and that ensured Darley got the nod in ruck.
Clarkson slides into a forward pocket as a resting ruckman, while Pittman is in a back pocket and Mossop is on the bench.
That means Hickinbotham, a 1947 Magarey Medal runner-up and Panthers’ best and fairest, narrowly misses out, and so does Nicholls, a four-time state representative.
Apart from the number of quality ruckmen, the other thing that stands out about Princes’ squad is there are five Magarey medallists.
Wingman Charles Perry, a minister in the Methodist Church who later became a chaplain in Europe during World War I, won one — in 1915 — among his 57 games for the Redlegs.
Sam “Max” Pontifex, usually a centreman but named at half-forward in this team, got his 17 years later towards the end of a career that included 10 state games and two best and fairests for West Torrens.
Then there is North Adelaide’s Ian McKay, the 1950 Magarey medallist and a player some consider the best full-back ever — not just in SA.
The fact a Magarey winner is on the bench — Port Adelaide’s Stan Malin, the second recipient of the award in 1899 — shows the depth of the side.
Tim Weatherald (2002), who has been pushed into a forward pocket, is the most recent squad member to claim the SANFL’s highest individual honour.
The side also includes five VFL/AFL premiership players (Pittman, Collingwood duo Scott Russell and Craig Kelly, and Hawthorn and West Adelaide star Robert Day), as well as five other SA Hall of Famers (Day and his brother Ian, the durable Rodney Maynard, ex-West captain Brian Faehse and former Bloods star/long-time sports editor at The Advertiser Merv Agars).
Bernie Vince’s best and fairests at Adelaide (2009) and Melbourne (2015), and Jack Viney’s (2016) at the Demons, where he is now co-captain, ensure the modern-day guns make the team at half-back and on the bench respectively.
A game involving this team could also feature two old scholars who became Hall of Fame administrators, Max Basheer and Wayne Jackson, as well as a Hall of Fame umpire from Prince Alfred, Murray Ducker.
Along with Hickinbotham and Nicholls, triple premiership-winning Redlegs forward Peter Dalwood and present-day players Jack Trengove, George Hewett and Sam Day are among those to narrowly miss the cut.
All-Australians: 4 — Darley, Davies, Robert Day, Russell.
Magarey medallists: 5 — Malin, McKay, Perry, Pontifex, Weatherald.
Brownlow medallists: Nil.
SA Football Hall of Famers: 8 — Agars,Darley, Davies, Ian Day, Robert Day, Faehse, McKay, Maynard.
ST PETER’S COLLEGE
A DUAL AFL premiership captain, a Bodyline cricketer, a Gallipoli casualty and two of the earliest Magarey medallists.
They are among the CVs of members of St Peter’s College’s all-time best 22.
Tom Harley is one of the side’s most accomplished modern-day players as the skipper of Geelong’s 2007 and 2009 flags and a one-time all-Australian.
But it is at the turn of the 20th century that some of this team’s other players made their names.
Philip Lee was a strong-marking forward in 41 games for Norwood from 1923-29, won a premiership in his first season and represented SA once, before being cruelled by a serious knee injury.
He went on to play two Tests for Australia as a lower-order batsman/off-spinner, including the fifth Bodyline Test in Sydney, where he made 42 and 15, and snared 4/111 in the first innings.
Phil Robin was a seven-time state representative, Redlegs best and fairest and, by many reports, an electrifying wingman during his 76-game football career from 1905-14.
Later, Robin enlisted in the 10th Battalion and served in Gallipoli, where he and companion Arthur Blackburn penetrated further inland than any other Australian whose names are known.
Robin was killed in action three days after the landing.
The team’s centreman, North Adelaide’s Phil Sandland, may raise eyebrows on inspection of how many league games (17) and full years (one) he played.
Hard to fault his 1901 season though, considering it ended with him receiving the Magarey Medal as an 18-year-old.
Rover Alby Green is the competition’s record books — as the first Magarey winner, in 1898.
Joseph “Ossie” Bertram (back pocket), Charles Gwynne (forward pocket) and James Gosse (bench) are three other names who may not be familiar to many but are celebrated Norwood players from the late 1890s and early 1900s.
Bertram was considered the colony’s best player for a time, Gosse was captain for a season and a two-time premiership player, while Gwynne featured in two flags, won two best and fairests and represented SA on seven occasions.
Much of the rest of the side has featured during the past four decades.
Four-time all-Australian Andrew McKay is an easy choice at half-back and five-time SA representative and three-time Glenelg leading goalkicker Stephen Copping will be relied upon to hit the scoreboard from a forward pocket.
Ex-Western Bulldog Will Minson, former Sturt big man David Reynolds and Gosse will share ruck duties.
Four present-day players have been selected.
GWS co-captain Phil Davis holds down full-back, Crow Riley Knight and Swan Will Hayward are on half-forward flanks, while Fremantle star Lachie Neale will burrow in through midfield.
Former Norwood ruckman Jonathon Yerbury, North Adelaide duo Mitch Harvey and Paris Fowden narrowly miss out on selection.
All-Australians: 3 — Harley, McKay, Minson.
Magarey medallists: 2 — Green, Sandland.
Brownlow medallists: Nil.
SA Football Hall of Famers: 1 — McKay.
REVEALED TOMORROW: We rank the eight schools’ greatest teams.
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