Garry Wilson on Open Mike

Mr Ripper · Jun 8, 2014

Tomorrow night (June 9) on Fox Footy. Should be well worth the watch.

PS Wonder whether Mike will ever pluck up the courage to invite DHL onto his program...

Last of the Roys · Jun 10, 2014

Just watched it tonight - it is well worth watching for those who haven't seen it - has some great footage as well (not sure if Foxtel will replay it or if these Open Mike interviews get put online or not).

One really interesting fact I didn't know was that after quitting at the end of 1984 aged 31, Wilson came back to Fitzroy in 1987 as a specialist coach. Apparently he was so fit / beating everyone at training that he was approached to play for Fitzroy in the seniors - he trained hard for 6 weeks and was named to play but by that time Fitzroy was out of finals contention so he decided to pull out.

As for the footage there was a few great little snippets: one was Wilson being hit by Graeme Teasdale (I think) of South - who then copped a big shove to the ground from a Fitzroy trainer.

But the best was Wilson kicking the ball almost 50m to Bernie Quinlan at half forward. Jimmy Jess from Richmond was playing on Quinlan and won the ball, but Wilson had amazingly sprinted the 50m after kicking it and collected Jess with a huge hit that basically knocked him out. (Apparently Jess had run through Wilson the year before so it was good payback and in any case Quinlan had asked Wilson for some help getting rid of Jess so when the opportunity came up he took it - it wasn't even a free in those days though).

vjknight · Jun 10, 2014

watching it now. easily one of my fav non pie players as a kid.

Garry29 · Jun 18, 2014

The flea is my hero, I do not care what some about him , he will always be the best player I have seen. I am not saying that he was the best player, just the best I have seen . Go Garry !