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