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Today Ozfooty asks the perennial question...Who was WA’S best ever full forward? 

We will look at the three players generally recognised as the top three contenders....Naylor, Robertson, and Doig.

BERNIE NAYLOR

South Fremantle star Bernie Naylor was one of Western Australia’s champion footballers.  Setting the standard for full forwards after the war,  he amassed 1,034 goals in ten seasons and 194 league games, as well as 45 in 16 State games.

Naylor played the full forward role to perfection. Whether it be a wrong footed feint for a lead, or pace out of the blocks to receive a pass from upfield, he perfected the art of forward play to a nicety.  Not a spectacular flier, he nevertheless was a sure mark,  but the jewel in Naylor’s crown was his kicking, which was a crowd puller in itself.

He perfected his own style of torpedo punt, with the ball turned forty five degrees so that the lace was touching the palm of his right hand instead of being on top.  He averaged 5 goals 3 per game over his career.  An obsessive trainer, he was always to be seen on Fremantle Oval after everyone else had gone home, practising his kicking for goal, always trying to perfect his lethal torpedo punt.

Naylor's illustrious career began in 1941 at the age of eighteen, when he was recruited from CBC Fremantle.   His initial season  was comparatively ordinary, with 60 goals, but he showed a glimpse of what was to come in the first semi final of that year with a haul of nine.  

Although the league competition was resumed in 1945, Naylor didn’t play again until 1946, when he kicked off in blistering style with nine goals against Claremont, and went on to register 131 for the season, heading the league goalkicking for the first time.

Under the guidance of playing coach Sir Ross Hutchinson, South Fremantle broke a thirty year premiership drought  in 1947.  Naylor got his first double figure bag with ten against East Perth, and was selected for the Australian Football Carnival. He bagged 96 for the qualifying rounds, 12 in the finals, and 18 for WA.   

He headed the league goalkicking again in another premiership season in 1948 with 89 but managed only a further 2 in the two finals against West Perth’s star full back, Ray Schofield.   Naylor started his love affair with Subiaco in 1949, kicking thirteen against them. But he only managed a meagre 56 goals that season, missing eight games with an injury.

In 1950, sick of the treatment South claimed was being metered out to the star forward, coach Clive Lewington played Naylor primarily on the half forward line.  Though Naylor was still a big contributor with 57 goals, the replacement in front of goal, Jack “Corp” Reilly kicked 54, and the ploy was a success, as South won another flag.

Naylor kicked 92 goals in 1951, adding eight in a post season game against Collingwood to reach the century. In 1952 he equalled George Doig’s record of 132 goals for the season, including equalling  Doig and George Moloney’s State record of 19 in a match, and headed the league list.

1953 saw South’s second successive premiership, and Naylor had a vintage year. He kicked a record 23 goals in a match against Subiaco, equalling South Australians Alf Daly and  Ken Farmer’s record, on his way to smashing his own record of the previous year with 156 for the qualifying rounds and167 for the season. He won the Walker Medal for fairest and  best, a feat in itself for a full forward, and was four votes off the Sandover Medal winner, Perth’s Merv McIntosh. He was also made a life member of South Fremantle.

Naylor retired at the end of the 1954 season at the age of 31, on top of his game, which was illustrated by his season’s tally of 133 goals. 

Bernie Naylor was a player who played the game fair, but as with a lot of full forwards, was subjected to unfair  tactics and buffeting from full backs throughout his career.  In one year he kicked his hundredth goal from a free, which was ironically the first free he’d received that year.

He kicked a grand total of 1,162 goals, a total which could have been far greater had the war years not ensued, and had he played on after 1954, when he was still at his peak, with 133 goals.  He headed South Fremantle’s goalkicking ten times, won the league award on six occasions, and was a member of six premiership sides.

Due recognition was bestowed upon the champion when the WANFL named the leading goalkicker’s award the Bernie Naylor Medal.

 

AUSTIN ROBERTSON

Austin Robertson was one of Western Australia’s finest ever full forwards.  He kicked 1287 goals for Subiaco, 60 in his only season at South Melbourne, and 44  in ten games for Western Australia.  He led the WANFL goalkicking list  eight  times and topped the hundred in six of the eleven years he played with Subiaco.  His total of 157 in the 1968 season is a record and will stand for many years to come.

Yet for the bulk of his career Robertson played in bottom four sides. In thirteen seasons he only played in six finals. This makes his performances even better than the already impressive statistics would suggest. 

Austin Robertson was a product of the Subiaco Juniors, and played his early football with the Floreat Park juniors.  He joined Subiaco in 1961, and made his league debut in 1962, at the age of eighteen. 

He was an instant sensation.  He kicked 89 goals in that first year and topped the league list. Robertson inherited the speed qualities of his father Austin Robertson snr, who besides being a champion footballer was an accomplished athlete, at one time being known as “the fastest man in the world”. 

Robertson jnr was lightning quick out of the blocks and was a dependable mark, but it was his kicking that set him apart from his peers. Like his champion predecessor, Bernie Naylor, he practised and perfected the drop punt, and he rarely missed a shot on goal. Tallies he kicked when topping the league list were: 1962(89), 1964(94), 1965(108), 1968(162), 1969(116)1970(116), 1971(111) and 1972(98).

It has to be said that, although Subiaco were a bottom side for most of the sixties, they did possess some great midfielders, who complemented Robertson’s game with superb footpassing.  Reg Hampson, Cam Blakemore, and Peter Metropolis were stars for a battling Subiaco side and  developed an understanding with the star sharpshooter.

Full backs from opposing sides breathed a sigh of relief when Austin Robertson went to Victoria in 1966 to line up with the club who still hold his father in high esteem, South Melbourne. He only played there for one season, but it was enough to let the Vics see his ability first hand, booting 60 majors for the lowly VFL side.

After returning to Subiaco in 1967, he picked up where he had left off, but it was the following season that his game moved into another gear. In 1968 he was unstoppable, and went into the last game of the qualifying rounds fourteen goals behind Bernie Naylor’s benchmark of 156. He kicked fifteen in that game, against a hapless East Fremantle,  to set a new high for full forwards in Western Australia.  Five more in the finals that year took his season’s tally to 162. He capped off the year with a Subiaco fairest and best award.

The following three years saw Robertson kick three figure totals, followed by 98 in 1972.  In 1973, the drought ended for Subiaco,  and the long awaited premiership was theirs. Although the Maroons changed their style of play to give them more forward options, Robertson was still their number one goalkicker.


Austin Robertson retired after the 1974 season at the age of 31. For a full forward to win a fairest and best is an achievement. Robertson won two for Subiaco.  He set a standard for full forward play and accurate kicking that will last as long as there is football in Western Australia.  


GEORGE DOIG

The debate about who was Western Australia’s best goalkicker  is an ongoing one and will always be, as no doubt other champions will emerge in years to come. Ozfooty has looked at two of the obvious contenders, Bernie Naylor and Austin Robertson and both have their admirers for the title of “best ever”.

George Doig the champion East Fremantle goalsneak, could well and truly have their measure.

Just for starters, cop this: At the age of eighteen George Doig is credited with kicking his team’s entire score of 26 goals 21 behinds in a South Suburban match.  That is almost impossible to comprehend, whatever the competition it was in.

As you would expect, that sort of thing does attract the attention of the league scouts, and so it was that the young George Doig wore the blue and white for the 1933 season at the age of twenty. He bagged nine goals in his first game, on the way to a debut season tally of 106, becoming the first player to achieve the hundred in a season.

In his second year he set the league on fire, kicking an Australian record of 152 goals. This included hauls of nineteen(also a record) and thirteen in consecutive matches. He went on to kick over a hundred goals in each season for nine years. The World War intervened and effectively closed the curtain prematurely on a breathtaking career, although he did come back in 1945 to make a further six appearances with East Fremantle in a premiership year.


In his day, he was known as the Bradman of football. He was the complete all round footballer, at home on the ground or in the air. Shorter than the average full forward, he was an unwaveringly accurate torpedo punt kick for goal. Reports say that he gave away many chances to add to his own goal tally by passing and creating opportunities for team mates.    


He kicked 1082 goals in his career span of nine years, at an average of 120 per season, at a game average of 5.46.  His career breakdown is as follows: 1933(106), 1934(152), 1935(113), 1936(108), 1937(144), 1938(101), 1939(108), 1940(109), 1941(141).

He played in three East Fremantle premierships.

George Doig was inducted into the Australian Football League’s Hall Of Fame in 2002, followed two years later by his induction into the Western Australian Football League’s Hall Of Fame. The Fremantle Dockers have also recognised the great man by naming their Fairest and Best award after him.

Whether you are a Naylor man or a Robertson fan, you have to take your hat off to the sharpshooter who just may have been the best of them all, George Doig. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

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