By Peter Ryan
David Dench became the game’s youngest-ever captain when he led North Melbourne out in 1972 aged just 20 years and 222 days.
He played in North Melbourne’s first premiership in 1975, no longer the captain but by then a star full-back. In 1977, he held up the premiership cup, the stand-in skipper for the injured Keith Greig in both the draw and the replay. He won four best and fairests and is in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
David Dench with his daughter Michelle in 2003 as she fulfilled her football promise. Credit: Angela Wylie
But as he reflects on his career on the eve of North Melbourne’s centenary celebration and the 50th anniversary of the breakthrough flag in 1975, his tone softens as his daughter Michelle’s sporting prowess in both basketball and football is mentioned.
“I just feel sorry for her that she was so good at football before the AFLW was created because I think she would have been outstanding,” Dench said.
“She was a brilliant footballer.”
Three flags, three times All-Australian and four best and fairests between 1998-2009 bear testament to her skill as both a leader and a hard runner, who dominated on the wing.
The Michelle Dench Medal, awarded to the best and fairest winner at Melbourne University Football Club, was won by Ash Riddell in 2018, while North skipper Emma Kearney won it five times before the honour carried Dench’s name.
That AFLW pair, Kearney and Riddell, will be celebrating another first premiership at North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium when the 2024 AFLW flag winners gather alongside the ’75 crew on Thursday night, with Dench sharing the stage with them without a second thought.
“They are all part of North Melbourne, and we stick together,” Dench said.
Michelle Dench in action in her playing days.
Dench, whose 275-game career with North was cut short by injury in 1984, spent windswept days among small crowds watching his daughter play.
His career transformed the game in the ’70s as he became the first full-back to successfully turn defence into attack, charging off the last line like the light brigade.
Former Kangaroos coach Denis Pagan was playing in the back pocket when Dench’s career started in 1969. Kicking across goal and charging forward were not part of a defender’s repertoire. But then Dench arrived with the skill and spirit to take the game on. Like a batsman charging a fast bowler, he pressed up before anyone had a term for what he was doing.
The scene from North Melbourne’s first VFL/AFL premiership in 1975.Credit: Fairfax Photographic
“He was probably one of the first to play like that from full-back,” Pagan said. “He would really explode when he made his mind up and was going for the ball. He would accelerate and a lot of forwards did not know whether to go with him or not, and a majority of times he won the football.”
Dench said it was the only way he knew how to play the game. He won a best and fairest in 1971 and became captain in ’72 before he had even reached the 50-game milestone.
The high he felt at being appointed turned into hard yards, as he tried to lead the team as well as he could while the Kangaroos won just one game for the season.
Change soon swept over the club.
David Dench’s battles in two finals against Hawthorn’s Michael Cooke are famousCredit: Melbourne
Ron Barassi arrived as coach and North Melbourne recruited Barry Davis (Essendon), Doug Wade (Geelong) and John Rantall (South Melbourne) under the short-lived 10-year rule, which allowed players with 10 years’ service to switch clubs without a clearance.
Alastair Clarkson – who wore the same No.23 as Dench in 85 of his 93 matches with North Melbourne – will be hoping to replicate the path Dench’s Kangaroos took as they combined talented youth with experience.
“They are on the right track,” Dench said of the current crop.
In 1973, Wayne Schimmelbusch and Mick Nolan made their debuts, Arnold Briedis turned 18 and began to earn more regular games, and Keith Greig, Sam Kekovich, Paul Feltham, Ross Henshaw and Frank Gumbleton began to push past or nudge 50 games.
Davis and Rantall held up their end of the bargain, sharing best and fairests from 1973 to 1975, while Doug Wade won the goalkicking each year, topping 100 goals in 1974.
Dench was happy for Davis to assume the captaincy in 1973.
“I had realised the year before [that] I was far too young and far too inexperienced. I learned so much from Barry while he was there,” Dench said.
Barassi was a hard taskmaster and those who survived thrived, building camaraderie with each other through hard work.
Football legend, the late Ron Barassi, coached North Melbourne from 1973 until 1980.Credit: John Donegan
“He took it back to basics in how you played football in a lot of respects,” Dench said. “The way he approached all the players ... we could not disrespect him for it because we didn’t know what winning was all about.”
They won half their games in 1973, then reached a grand final – just the second in the club’s history to that point in 1974. They hung on for three quarters before Richmond taught them a lesson in the decider.
“We were just so unprepared and overwhelmed,” Dench said. “We weren’t really aware of what pressure we would come under in a grand final.”
Despite losing their first four games in 1975, they didn’t panic and rolled into the grand final against Hawthorn with confidence. Dench had four goals kicked on him by a first-gamer, Michael Cooke, in the second semi-final, but quelled him in the grand final. Cooke didn’t touch it as the Kangaroos broke the 50-year VFL drought in the final quarter.
“When the siren went, and we knew we had won it, it was a little bit of an anti-climax,” Dench concedes. “You have the build-up, the pressure all year, and when the siren went we knew we had won. It wasn’t until we went back to [club president] Allen Aylett’s place after being to the Southern Cross and saw all the old supporters down there who were crying and could not believe it [that it began to sink in].”
Fifty years ago premierships were celebrated hard, but there was no time for anyone to rest on their laurels. Dench went to work on Monday at Lloyd Holyoak Motors in Warrandyte, and then was back on the track a week later to prepare for the Australian club championships.
The Kangaroos played a practice match in Sunshine on the Friday after the grand final, before Dench lined up in Adelaide on the following Sunday and Monday.
It bred tough, uncomplaining players such as Dench, who won his second and third best and fairests in 1976 and 1977, leading the team to another flag in Greig’s absence in the same year Michelle, who is now on the AFLW tribunal panel, was born.
The opening goal of the 1977 drawn grand final shows vintage Dench as he took a chest mark at half-forward, having pushed up the ground from full-back. He played on immediately before kicking a long goal.
David Dench’s famous rebounding goal in the 1977 grand final against Collingwood.Credit: YouTube/Seven
“I can remember the elation when it went through and turning and looking at my teammates and how elated they were, and thinking that is a positive for confidence,” Dench said.
He finished the famous match with two goals after moving forward late to fuel the comeback. The Kangaroos won the replay the next week and the image of Dench holding the premiership cup became part of the club’s folklore.
“That was my highlight,” Dench said. “To this day I still feel sorry for Keith [Grieg], given what a great footballer he was, that he didn’t experience it, and I was able to experience it through his misfortune.”
Dench returned from knee injuries, which ultimately derailed his career, in the late ’70s before winning his final best and fairest in 1981 and retiring as a club legend in ’84.
His love for the Kangaroos remained undiminished and their commitment to him became evident when he was sentenced to four months’ jail in 2008 for his role in a scheme to defraud Victoria University. Although he became slightly withdrawn, according to former teammates, post that period, their regard for him never wavered.
“The football club has always been supportive. I’ve had a lot of great mates down there. Most of that hierarchy – Barry Cheatley, Ron Joseph and Allen Aylett – visited and what have you. I had the support,” Dench said.
Now 73, Dench still works and is not one for limelight, but he will be there on Thursday night to celebrate the footballing achievements he reflects on with pride, and the memories he and so many others created for a legion of diehard Kangaroos fans.
“To me [the premierships] are recognition of what I was able to achieve, and the respect people held me in. I tried to give it everything [and] it is good that people still acknowledge who I am,” Dench said.
Not many can claim to have changed the way the game is played. Dench can.
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