VICTORIAN TEAM OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Forward Line

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Right Forward Pocket - Bob Skilton (South Melbourne & Port Melbourne)

Few players have personified old fashioned 'G and D' to the extent of tenacious former South Melbourne rover Bob Skilton.  In 238 games with the Swans he never gave less than the optimum in terms of effort.  It was the same story when he donned the VFL state jumper, and towards the end of his career when he fulfilled a boyhood dream in representing his beloved Port Melbourne.

One legacy of this attitude was the exceptional number of injuries - often several in the same game - sustained by Skilton during the course of his career.  A more measurable legacy came in the shape of 3 Brownlow Medals and an incredible 9 South Melbourne best and fairest awards.  Not that Skilton's approach lacked finesse.  He was, in fact, a highly skilled, pre-eminently two-sided footballer in an era when this was still very much the exception to the rule.  Roving to losing South Melbourne rucks for much of his career he turned this to his advantage by developing an unparalleled ability to anticipate the direction of the opposing ruckman's taps.  By contrast, roving to the likes of John Schultz, 'Polly' Farmer and John Nicholls in interstate matches must have seemed the height of luxury.

Skilton often remarked that he would have traded every one of his Brownlows to have played in one premiership but the closest he got was South's losing 1st semi final against St Kilda in 1970.

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Full Forward - Bob Pratt (South Melbourne & Coburg)

High-flying Bob Pratt was one of the most spectacular and effective forwards in football history.  Best remembered for his shoulder-scraping marks Pratt would have been a thoroughgoing sensation had he played during the videotape era.  Other VFL and VFA goalsneaks of the time - Titus, Mohr, Vallence, and Todd, for instance - may have kicked more goals than Pratt, but no one equalled his strike rate, and it is at least arguable to suggest that no one rivalled him as an all round player.

Statistics do not provide all of the information necessary to gauge the worth of a player but Pratt's unexcelled season's total of 150 goals for South Melbourne in 1934, the 183 he bagged for Coburg in 1941, and the 22 goals he booted in a single match for Coburg against Sandringham that same year are all eloquently indicative of the type of champion he was.

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Left Forward Pocket - Jack Dyer (Richmond)

The nickname 'Captain Blood' says almost everything which needs to be said: Jack Dyer was the epitome of the tough, ruthless footballer who took no prisoners.  However, the tiny amount which it doesn't say is also worthy of telling: Jack Dyer was a highly accomplished footballer who would have been a creditable performer even without the embellishment of brutality.  Perhaps more to the point, had Dyer elected to sacrifice some of his team-orientated qualities in favour of the individualistic approach espoused by certain of his contemporaries there are some (Melbourne super-coach Norm Smith - no mean judge of player talent, one ventures to suppose - among them) who suggest he might have become the greatest and most highly decorated footballer of all time.

Decorations were for Christmas trees as far as Jack Dyer was concerned, however.  Football was - and is - a team game, and if the best way to help his team to victory was to intimidate and unsettle the opposition, then so be it.  Moreover, if the needs of the team were best served by inflicting actual bodily harm on members of the opposition, then that was fine, too.  Having been schooled by nuns and Christian brothers, Dyer was nothing if not pragmatic.  "Anything goes," he once observed, "as long as you can get away with it."  The fact that Jack Dyer was only suspended once during his 20 season, 312 game, innumerable collar bone-breaking VFL career suggests that he was eminently capable of 'getting away with it'.

He was also a pretty good footy player.

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