50 years since Polly debuted for Geelong

skilts

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#51
Easily the best ruckman I've ever seen. It's sad that he's losing his memory. Only the onset of a similar condition would allow me to forget watching him play.
 

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Kwality

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Thread starter #53
Only ever seen footage, but he changed the game in a similar way to Captain Blood or Deisel Williams, or Cuz. Each did something no else did that won games and so people copied them. these guys may, or may not be, the best ever but they are true champions in a way very few are. Polly would be small by modern standards, but his skills would have put him the top few % of modern players. If he was transported here at 200cm he would make all bar a couple of rucks look like monkeys. What a true champion of the game. Main board - celebrate the best.
Sorry to say the effect of Jack Dyer/Diesel on the game is a couple of steps off Polly.
Cuz didnt change the game, great to watch, could do it all & did it all, not in Pollys league.
 

Catsace

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#54
Did you know that Polly played only 6 games in his debut year for the Cats, but still came in 9th in their B&F that year?

He also won East Perth's B&F 7 out of his 9 seasons for the Royals. The only years he didn't win were he debut season and in 1958, when he missed games with injuries and teammate (and childhood friend) Ted 'Square' Kilmurray won both the B&F and Sandover Medal.

Add his Geelong B&F awards in 1963 and 1964, Polly won 9 B&Fs in his first 12 seasons of senior football.

Polly's coaching record at Geelong might not have been great (24 wins, 42 losses), but it was pretty decent in the West.

Coached West Perth in 91 matches for a 60-30-1 record, and his 45 games in charge of East Perth netted him a 30-15 w/l ratio. That's a win percentage of 66.1% in the WAFL.
Tough era for Geelong in the 70's, as the stars of the 60's had pretty much retired, indeed Farmer's first year of coaching saw Doug Wade shift to North under the 10-year rule, so he didn't have a lot to work with. Geelong at the time also had fallen behind the likes of Richmond, Carlton, Collingwood etc with finances and the 70's would be Geelong's most fruitless decade since the war-torn 40's.

Never saw him play live (born 1968) but can just imagine if he was a young man playing now. Pioneered the use of handball as an offensive weapon at a time when it was eschewed by may coaches as a last resort only.
 

RogersResults

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#55
Tough era for Geelong in the 70's, as the stars of the 60's had pretty much retired, indeed Farmer's first year of coaching saw Doug Wade shift to North under the 10-year rule, so he didn't have a lot to work with. Geelong at the time also had fallen behind the likes of Richmond, Carlton, Collingwood etc with finances and the 70's would be Geelong's most fruitless decade since the war-torn 40's.

Never saw him play live (born 1968) but can just imagine if he was a young man playing now. Pioneered the use of handball as an offensive weapon at a time when it was eschewed by may coaches as a last resort only.
Geelong coached by Farmer in 1974 are the only team under the final five system not to have made the finals and defeated all five eventual finalists during the season. This included beating the premiers (Richmond) on the MCG, the runners-up (Nth Melbourne) on their home ground at Arden Street and eventual 4th placed Collingwood at Victoria Park.

The introduction in 1967 of exclusive country zones was bad news for the 'country club' Geelong. Partly because of the zone allocated to them but significantly they lost access to many players from rural areas who would have preferred to live and work in the more 'country-like' atmosphere of Geelong than in the 'big-smoke' of metropolitan Melbourne. The Geelong team that holds the League record of 23 consecutive wins and 26 consecutive matches without defeat, 1952-3 was around 75% recruited from country Victoria. Apparently disagreements about future recruiting strategies caused Farmer to leave Geelong at the end of 1967.
 

Swampfox

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#56
Yes it happened at the opening bounce when they collided and Polly went down, the reaction amongst the Geelong crowd was quite palpable. From memory it was a full crowd at Princes Park, as the Carlton ground was known then, and they opened the gates. I understand that Maurie Sankey passed away a couple of years ago. A memorable start to the great mans VFL career.
Polly Farmer versus John Nicholls is still recognized as one of the greatest contests in any era of football

Polly was a game breaker and as an opposition supporter i used to marvel at his skill and his attacking handball which later was defined as game changing

A little known fact about Farmer is he actually had one leg shorter than the other

If Farmer had come across earlier i would have bet on him winning a brownlow medal such was his greatness

He was unlucky not to win it anyway

Comparing him to today's players is pointless

For the record Maurie Sankey was killed in a car accident in November 1965

Sankey was Tasmanian and Carlton needed to find another Ruckman and recruited another Tasmanian the following year who most Blues supporters would know fondly as Peter "Percy" Jones

What is ironic about the Sankey tragedy is that Percy was also nearly lost to football when badly injured in car accident before even playing for the Blues


In those days playing two Ruckman was standard and of course Carlton already had John Nicholls

Sankey was originally featured in the 1966 Scanlens Football Cards (also known as the flag series) but one player from each VFL club was dropped from the set to allow for the addition of a group of western australian players which included Barry Cable , John Mcintosh , Mal Brown who eventually came across to the VFL)

Even Kevin Murray was in a Royals jumper before heading back to Fitzroy to win a Brownlow Medal

For some of you Footy Card Collectors out there you would know that in 2003 this set was reproduced in controversial circumstances with the missing VFL players included in a limited edition set

Some of the players along with Sankey given a second chance were Ken Emselle , John Northey , and John "Sam" Newman


Farmer was made a legend of the game because he was one
 

Vdubs

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#57
Nice one Roby...sums it up pretty well.

When I was a kid, there was Polly....then the rest. Goggin, Wade, Marshall....all very fine players....but Polly was out of the box.

A legend of the game who changed the way it was played.
Agree David. I was fortunate enough to attend a school in Geelong, St Joey's, and 'The Big Cat' quite frequently came and gave us kids footy lessons.I was grade 3, 4 and 5 at the time, but he had a profound impact on us and the game. Sam Newman says Polly is still the BEST player he has ever seen over all this time. Big call, but , as you say, an absolute footballing genius and freak.
 

Dr Tigris

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#58
ben cousins changed the game?

News to me.
Cuz's gut running changed how players train and how midfields operate. IMHO he is not a patch on Polly in terms of greatness, but my point is that there are only a very few players that changed the game in it's history. Polly Farmer showed that rucks could be useful in more ways than just tap outs and filling holes behind the game, AND he showed that handball could be a fearsome weapon. That's 2 major changes to the game - incredible for one player. Both probably more important than Cuz's contrubution.

Happy??
 

Roby

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#60
Unfortunately Cousin's career will always be tainted by his drug abuse.

Introducing Cousins into a discussion on Farmer is ludicrous IMO. They are not in the same ball park.
Seems like he go caught again today with meth. :D


As far as the previous poster saying Cousins revolutionized the game in terms or running, I though Robert Harvery and Shane Crawford were way ahead of their time in that regard.
 
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