Back to Collingwood Part 1
In 1903, James Francis McHale was invited to join Collingwood by club secretary Ern Copeland, after McHale had starred for a combined junior team against the Magpies in a pre-season practice match. Over the course of the ensuing half century, McHale's name would come to be regarded as synonymous with the Collingwood Football Club, whose culture and tradition he not only enriched, but to a very large degree helped formulate.
Although he is best remembered for his achievements as a coach, McHale was also a highly proficient player for the Magpies in 261 VFL games over fifteen full seasons, initially as a half back flanker, but for the majority of his career in the pivot:
| Although not the most
brilliant player of his day, he was a good centreman and a player of
extraordinary cunning and nouse. His reading of the game and his
assessment of opposition players were legendary, even early in his career.
He was quite speedy, regularly working on his running during the summer
months, and strong. He was an excellent ball handler, a capable mark
and a reasonable kick, though he was sometimes criticised for punting the
ball high into forward line rather than using low, direct passes.
Overall, his skills, combined with his forceful play, helped make him one
of the most competitive centremen in the League.
(See footnote 10)
In 1912, while still a player, McHale replaced George Angus as Collingwood coach, a position he retained until 1949, steering his beloved Magpies to seventeen grand finals and eight premierships in the process. He was not initially successful, however. In his debut season, Collingwood managed just 9 wins from 18 matches, and missed the VFL finals for the first time ever. Modest improvement followed in 1913 - a 13-5 record and 4th place on the ladder - but the side failed to reach the finals again the following year. |
A youthful Jock McHale |
Despite this, the Collingwood committee persisted with McHale, clearly either perceiving that the young maestro needed a little time to blossom, or perhaps realising, with the war making inevitable inroads into the available talent pool, that there was nothing better on offer. Whatever the reason, the committee's loyalty appears inspired in hindsight. Collingwood won the 1915 minor premiership, but wilted disappointingly in the finals; clearly, however, McHale had the nucleus of a good side. In 1917, his last full season as a player, the Magpies, having again clinched the minor premiership, won their fourth league premiership, and their fifth in all, with a comprehensive 9.20 (74) to 5.9 (39) challenge final defeat of old rivals Fitzroy, which had scored an upset 6 point win a week earlier in the final. Best afield was Collingwood's sumptuously gifted centreman Percy Wilson, with half back flanker George Anderson, wingman Tom Drummond, half forward Len 'Gus' Dobrigh, and full back Harry Saunders among other Magpies to shine.
Relieved of the responsibility of playing (see footnote 11), Jock McHale could concentrate on developing the unique and legendary coaching style that many since have endeavoured, and failed, to emulate. Dissecting that style is not easy, but Michael Roberts' cogent evaluation almost certainly pinpointed most of the key ingredients:
McHale's real strength lay in his ability to prepare and inspire players, and instill discipline into the team's game.
The discipline came largely from a strict game plan and training methods that drilled the plan home..... The preparation came from McHale's renowned capacity for judging a player's fitness. He could see which players needed more work in certain areas, and acted to overcome any weakness. To him, fitness was the key ingredient to success, and consistently good performances were not possible without it..... The inspiration came from the man himself. He was single-minded about football, and about Collingwood in particular. He loved the club, and devoted much of his life to it. As a player he would have run through any number of concrete structures for the Woods, and he expected his charges to display similar commitment and intensity. (See footnote 12)
Collingwood players unfurl the 1910 VFL premiership pennant prior to the team's opening game of the following season, at home to Richmond.
The fact that those charges did display the same kind and level of commitment and intensity as their mentor was perhaps the single main reason for Collingwood's success during the McHale years, as well as arguably representing the great man's most significant and enduring legacy. And why did the Collingwood players demonstrate these attributes? Chiefly because in McHale, the club had a figurehead who, for reasons that are almost impossible to fathom, inspired and engendered loyalty of the most intense and all-embracing kind. In a sense, Jock McHale the man was almost indistinguishable from Collingwood the club; he personified Collingwood, and when he died of a heart attack in 1953, shortly after the Magpies had overcome Geelong in the grand final, "part of Collingwood died" (see footnote 13) along with him.
Satisfying as the 1917 premiership had been, there was keen awareness within the club that it had been achieved under war time conditions, in a truncated VFL of just six clubs. With the restoration of normality in 1919, the incentive for Collingwood to prove itself as a power was considerable, but clubs like reigning premier South Melbourne, Carlton, Richmond and Fitzroy were equally determined, ensuring that fans starved of full scale, top level football since 1915 were treated to an enthralling season. After a shaky start which included an unexpected and indeed unprecedented loss at home to St Kilda - the Saints' first ever win at Victoria Park in the VFL - Collingwood finished the season in formidable form to claim the much valued double chance:
1919 VFL Premiership Ladder after Home and Away Rounds (see footnote 14)
| Points | |||||||
| Won | Lost | Drawn | For | Ag. | Pts | % | |
| Collingwood | 13 | 3 | - | 1243 | 766 | 52 | 61.6 |
| South Melbourne | 12 | 4 | - | 1111 | 700 | 48 | 63.0 |
| Carlton | 10 | 6 | - | 1150 | 901 | 40 | 78.3 |
| Richmond | 10 | 6 | - | 1083 | 916 | 40 | 84.6 |
| Fitzroy | 9 | 6 | 1 | 1074 | 857 | 38 | 79.8 |
| Essendon | 7 | 9 | - | 924 | 977 | 28 | 105.7 |
| St Kilda | 7 | 9 | - | 772 | 1093 | 28 | 141.6 |
| Geelong | 3 | 12 | 1 | 794 | 1082 | 14 | 136.3 |
| Melbourne | - | 16 | - | 647 | 1506 | - | 232.8 |
A three goal semi final defeat of Carlton was the Magpies' ninth victory in succession, and everything seemed to be proceeding swimmingly. However, in the final Richmond, which was fast developing into a highly accomplished combination, won with ease by 29 points. McHale responded by exhorting his charges to raise both the tempo and the intensity for the following week's decisive play-off and the Tigers, who still lacked experience of finals football, "cracked under the strain and were a beaten side long before the final bell" (see footnote 15).
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Con McCarthy - click to enlarge. |
Collingwood captain Con McCarthy, "a fitness fanatic who enjoyed training in an era when it was unusual to do so" (see footnote 16), earned the plaudits for best afield after a classic demonstration of the supposedly lost art of ruck shepherding, while ruckman Les 'Flapper' Hughes, centreman Charlie Pannam junior, centre half forward Harry Curtis, and half forward flanker Ernie Wilson also stood out. Richmond gained revenge over the Woods twelve months later with a 7.10 (52) to 5.5 (35) triumph in the challenge final, a result which effectively rubber-stamped the Tigers' elevation in status from derisory striplings to detested, if worthy, foes. Things would be very different next time the two sides contested a premiership play-off, however. |
One of the reasons that folk at Victoria Park despised Richmond so much was that the Tigers' rise to pre-eminence had been masterminded by a Collingwood defector, Dan Minogue. After returning from war service Minogue, a former Magpie skipper, stunned club officials by requesting a clearance to Punt Road for reasons which were never publicly disclosed, but are widely believed to have revolved around Minogue's dissatisfaction over Collingwood's treatment of his close friend Jim Sadler, who after a long and illustrious career had been struggling to get a senior game. Minogue eventually got his way, but he had to stand out of football for twelve months before doing so. Between 1920 and 1925 he coached the Tigers to their first era of success since entering the VFL in 1908, with much of that success coming at Collingwood's expense.
| The Minogue defection was but the most distasteful - at
least from a Collingwood perspective - of several notable departures from the
club during the early 1920s, including Bill Twomey senior, who left to pursue a
career in athletics, Charlie Pannam junior, who was appointed coach of South
Melbourne, and Tom Drummond, under whose guidance VFA side Footscray would end
up gaining admittance to the League in 1925.
The end of the 1922 season saw Collingwood weakened still further when Walter 'Dick' Lee, 'the prince of goalsneaks', retired after 230 VFL games and 707 goals in seventeen seasons. The last of those 707 goals came with Lee's final kick in league football, in the losing 1922 challenge final against Fitzroy. Small (175cm) and lightweight (70kg) by the standards of modern full forwards Lee was nevertheless a commanding figure on the ground, and "matched spectacular, high-flying aerobatics with superb ground-level skills and unerring accuracy in front of goal, whether by punt or place kick" (see footnote 17). Testimony to this accuracy is afforded by the tale that Lee was a frequent visitor to an amusement hall which had a game that required participants to kick at a target from various difficult angles; in the end, the proprietors allegedly had to bar Lee from participating owing to his near faultless proficiency (see footnote 18). |
'Dick' Lee |
Fortunately for Collingwood, it had a perfect replacement for Lee in the shape of Gordon 'Nuts' Coventry, who would go on to become an equally feted, and even more prolific, goal kicker. Coventry made his debut for the club in 1920, and two years later he was joined by his older brother Syd, who supplemented his formidable playing prowess with an exceptional football brain and sterling qualities of leadership. Both Coventry brothers would play key roles in the rise and development of one of the greatest VFL combinations of all time, as would another pair of brothers, the Colliers - Albert, who debuted in 1925, and the smaller, nimbler Harry, both of whom were locally born and Collingwood 'through and through'.
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Harry Saunders, one of the finest defenders of his era, who played 133 VFL games for the Woods between 1916 and 1926. In 1922 he was at the centre of a controversy following a match against Carlton in which he pole axed Alex Duncan. Not only was he found guilty at the tribunal, and suspended for 6 games, but the police also took action and fined him £5. |
Despite these acquisitions, it took some time for the Collingwood machine to reach top gear. In both 1925, against Geelong, and 1926, against Melbourne, the Magpies lost the premiership deciding match of the year. In 1927, however, with Gordon Coventry getting within 3 goals of the elusive 'ton' to establish a new league high, and brother Syd claiming the club's first Brownlow Medal, the Woods were unstoppable, losing just 3 home and away matches for the season to top the ladder before effortlessly dispatching Geelong from premiership contention with a 16.18 (114) to 7.6 (48) win in a semi final. Then, for the first time since the war (not including the 1924 season when the finals were contested on a round robin basis), the league was deprived of a bonus pay-out when Collingwood comprehensively outplayed Richmond in conditions better suited to water polo than football in the final. In 1923 the League had postponed the challenge final meeting of Essendon and Fitzroy because of heavy rain, and quite clearly it should have done likewise in 1927, with the MCG waterlogged, and one wing completely underwater. Nevertheless, players of both teams, together with a meagre crowd of 34,551, braved the conditions, with Richmond starting well to lead 0.4 to 0.1 at the first change, before the Magpies began to utilise their superior power, and adapt their much vaunted game system, to good effect. By half time Collingwood led 2.6 (18) to 0.4 (4), the equivalent of a 10 goal lead in the conditions, and although the Tigers had slightly the better of the second half they never looked like making up the leeway. Collingwood won 2.13 (25) to 1.7 (13) - the lowest scoring premiership deciding match in VFL history. The Coventry brothers again dominated, with Syd best afield, and Gordon booting both his team's goals, while team mates Bob Makeham at centre half forward, half forward flanker Frank Murphy, centreman 'Jack' Beveridge, and ruckman Percy Rowe handled the mud, slush and icy winds better than most. |
Collingwood's team in 1928 was just as strong, but it had to endure a nervous moment in its semi final clash with Melbourne when, after leading 9.8 (62) to 4.8 (32) at the last change, it allowed the Redlegs to rattle on 5 unanswered last quarter goals to secure the first finals tie in League history. In the replay, the Magpies led from start to finish, but still had a tough time holding off a fast finishing Melbourne to win by just 4 points, 10.8 (68) to 9.10 (54).
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The final once again pitted Collingwood against detested rivals Richmond, with the Magpies, as minor premiers, in the happy position of having the double chance to fall back on if they lost. However, with the Collier brothers in devastating form, an incredible 9 goals from full forward Gordon Coventry, and excellent performances from the likes of centre half forward Frank Murphy, back pocket Harold Rumney, rover William Libbis and Syd Coventry in the ruck, a loss to Collingwood never looked remotely likely. After the Magpies had led comfortably at every change, Richmond made a semblance of a comeback during the last quarter to get within 15 points, but the Collingwood machine simply cranked the gears up another couple of notches and eased away to a 33 point triumph, 13.18 (96) to 9.9 (63). By common consent, the Collingwood side of 1929 was one of the most formidable in football history. Not only did it emerge victorious in all 18 home and away matches - the first VFL team to accomplish this feat - it also became the first VFL side to register 2,000 points in a season. Moreover, with Gordon Coventry topping the goal kicking list after becoming the first player to exceed a century of goals, and Albert Collier securing the Brownlow Medal, the Magpies repeated the elusive trifecta first achieved in 1927. |
Syd Coventry - click to enlarge. |
What mere statistics fail to reveal, however, is just how awesome and redoubtable this Magpie class of '29 appeared to contemporaries. Opposition teams were not merely beaten, they were crushed. So ingrained was the legendary 'McHale system' that players behaved exactly like cogs in a giant chain, making machine analogies, however facile, almost unavoidable:
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Ted Baker, who played with no fewer than 4 VFL clubs, including 2 stints at Collingwood. He was a superb rover and frequent 'Big V' representative. |
Each Collingwood player was a link in a chain. Defenders cleared the ball, the centre-line and rovers delivered it and the forwards kicked the goals (see footnote 19). Magpies had used secret signs prior to World War 1 in order to let each other know where to pass the ball, but by the late 1920s Collingwood functioned so mechanistically that such measures were no longer necessary. Collingwood players were rugged individualists who integrated themselves into a machine knowing that it was greater than the sum of its individual parts. That machine played football with precision and purpose. Shepherding and chasing were as important as kicking goals. Each player had the specific task of beating his opponent and the general task of assisting his team mates. (See footnote 20) Analogies do not fully define the truth, of course, merely help make sense of it, and this was graphically demonstrated when the supposedly invincible Collingwood machine met Richmond in the 1929 2nd semi final. During the minor round the Magpies had scored two comfortable wins over their arch rivals, but on this occasion "they amazed the experts by playing like a jaded, weary and dispirited team. Their dash had gone, and the greatest surprise was that their system and discipline cracked under the Tigers' force (see footnote 21). Richmond won with embarrassing ease, 18.15 (123) to 8.13 (61), and when the same two teams lined up for the challenge final a fortnight later many of the 63,336 spectators who crammed into the MCG probably expected to see a repetition. The Magpies, however, had learned an invaluable lesson, and they were not about to be out-done twice: |
Collingwood selectors increased the average weight of the side by 4lb (2kg) for the grand final. They brought in two strong players - Len Murphy and (Charles) Ahern - and Percy Bowyer, a fast flanker.
Collingwood's 'machine' rolled flat every obstacle in a smashing first quarter that yielded 6.3. Richmond, sluggish, and lacking much of the force they had shown against Carlton (in the previous week's final), was overpowered in the ruck, in the air, in pace, and in tactics.
All over the field the Magpies played with terrific zest and efficiency. They scouted cleverly, and their ball handling was masterly. They played to a plan, never lost a kick, backed up well, and had 'loose men' running all day. (See footnote 22)
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Part of the Magpies' 'plan' was to have players totally ignore the leads of Gordon Coventry, who was invariably attended by a harassing posse of Tigers, and pass instead to forward pocket Horace Edmonds. The stratagem worked to a tee: Edmonds helped himself to 5 goals, and by the time the Richmond brains trust cottoned on to what was happening it was too late. Collingwood eventually won by 29 points, 11.13 (79) to 7.8 (50), and in the process emulated Carlton's 1906-7-8 feat of winning three consecutive VFL premierships. The challenge now was to make it an unprecedented four in a row. The 1930 season brought a new challenger to Collingwood in the shape of Geelong. The Cats not only won the only minor round clash between the sides - at Victoria Park at that - but were much too classy and quick when the teams next met in the final. In the end, the fact that Collingwood had been able to secure its fifth minor premiership in as many seasons probably proved decisive, although the challenge final of 1930 proved to be a much sterner test of the Magpies' mettle than the meeting with Richmond twelve months earlier. |
Albert 'Leeter' Collier |
The Cats made no secret of the fact that they had modelled their style on the patented formula which had been used to such telling effect by Collingwood since the mid-1920s. Moreover, whereas some of Collingwood's players were beginning to approach their sell by date, the majority of the Geelong side were young, fighting fit, and fanatically determined to restore their club's fortunes. During the 12.19 (91) to 9.11 (65) defeat of the Woods in the final, "Geelong played in form of which the mighty Collingwood in its best days might have been proud" (see footnote 23). Then, in the following week's challenge final, "Geelong, with faultless football, took complete charge in the first half, outgeneralling and outpacing Collingwood" (see footnote 24). At half time, the Cats led 6.10 (46) to 3.7 (25).
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Harold Chesswass - click to enlarge. |
What Geelong lacked, though, was experience, and this the Magpies had in abundance. Within six minutes of the resumption, by means of the fanatical but controlled application of vigour, they had wiped off the deficit, and never looked back. Once Collingwood hit the front, it "fairly battered its way to victory" (see footnote 25), winning in the end by 30 points, 14.16 (100) to 9.16 (65), a margin that had looked impossible at half time. Gordon Coventry, in another consummate demonstration of the art of full forward play, booted 7 goals to vie for best afield honours with often underrated half forward flanker Robert Makeham. Among others to earn the plaudits of the critics were centre half forward Frank Murphy, wingmen Bruce Andrew and Harold Chesswass, and half back flanker George 'Kitty' Clayden. |
Between 1927 and 1930 Collingwood had dominated the Victorian football scene as no side before or since, not only winning four successive premierships, but finishing top of the ladder after the home and away rounds every year. The trademark tenacity, determination and 'win at all costs' mind-set which is today regarded as quintessentially 'Victorian' arguably derives more from the Collingwood sides of this particular era than any other single source. 'Jock' McHale and his cohorts had absolutely no time for 'pretty football' if it failed to achieve results, and the legacy of this attitude is there for all to read on the Victoria Park honour board.
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10. A Century of the Best: the Stories of Collingwood's Favourite Sons by Michael Roberts, page 178. Return to Main Text
11. McHale actually played one more full VFL game in 1918, while in the opening round of 1920 he came on as a last minute replacement for Alex Mutch, the last time he ever appeared in a Collingwood jumper. Return to Main Text
12. Roberts, op cit., pages 178-9. Return to Main Text
13. Ibid., page 180. The intimation that part of the club 'died' with McHale is especially persuasive in light of the club's fortunes since. Return to Main Text
14. VFL percentages at this time were calculated by multiplying 'points against' by 100, and dividing that total by 'points for'. This was the exact opposite to the system used in today's AFL, which meant that lower percentages were superior to higher percentages. Consequently Fitzroy, had it managed to win the drawn game against Geelong, would have qualified for the finals at Richmond's expense. Return to Main Text
15. Let's Look at Football by Hugh Buggy, page 15. Return to Main Text
16. The Encyclopedia of League Footballers by Jim Main and Russell Holmesby, page 276. Return to Main Text
17. The Clubs by Garrie Hutchinson and John Ross, page 80. Return to Main Text
18. Main and Holmesby, op cit, page 248. Return to Main Text
19. McHale always insisted on his players sticking to position. On one noted occasion, wingman Bruce Andrew twice raced into the forward lines to kick scintillating goals, only to find himself promptly benched. "We've got bloody forwards to do that!" was coach McHale's acerbic explanation. Return to Main Text
20. Kill For Collingwood by R.Stremski, pages 87-8. Return to Main Text
21. VFL Premiers by Hugh Buggy, page 8. Return to Main Text
22. Ibid., page 8. Return to Main Text
23. Ibid., page 10. Return to Main Text
24. Ibid., page 10. Return to Main Text
25. Ibid., page 10. Return to Main Text
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