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Seven West Adelaide players have won selection in the 12 All-Australian teams chosen from the introduction of the national team in 1953.
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Jack Lynch
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Stan Costello
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Donald Neil Kerley
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Don Roach
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Robert Day
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Geoff Morris
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Craig Williams
Since the inception of the Adelaide Football Club in 1991, five players have been awarded All-Australian selection over ten years.
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1993 - Tony Modra
1994 - Shaun Rehn, Mark Ricciuto
1997 - Tony Modra, Mark Ricciuto
1998 - Mark Ricciuto
2000 - Mark Ricciuto
2002 - Mark Ricciuto
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2003 - Mark Ricciuto
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Jack Tierney
Despite looking old enough, even during the early stages of his career, to have fathered many of his fellow players (indeed, towards the end of that career, he gloried in the nickname 'Dad'), James 'Sorry' Tierney possessed formidable talent. He won a Magarey Medal in 1908, and formed a highly effective partnership for a time with Tom Leahy during West Adelaide's rapid emergence as a power in 1908 and 1909. He later played briefly with Leahy at North Adelaide.
Henry Richard Head
'Dick' Head made his West Adelaide debut in 1906, and by the following season was regularly being listed among the best players. An excellent mark and a superb kick, he covered so much ground during the course of a game that he "was worth three ordinary men" (see footnote 1).
At the age of 22, Head was awarded the 1909 Magarey Medal. The following year he was appointed West's vice-captain, and in 1913 he assumed the captaincy. A regular member of South Australian interstate teams, he played in the victorious carnival side of 1911, and was state captain in 1913. Arguably his best season in league football was 1915 when, in a middle of the road West team, he was voted the best all round player in South Australia by readers of the 'Football Budget'.
After a break for the war, Head was back with Westies in 1919, and although he was a touch slower than in his heyday his name still appeared frequently on the best player lists. At the end of the 1920 season he left West and joined Sturt, but managed only 4 games there before calling it a day. The 1922 season saw him appointed non-playing coach of Glenelg but he actually felt constrained to don the boots again midway through the season in a fruitless effort to bolster the side's fortunes. A total of 7 games with Glenelg took his final tally of league games to 154 in 13 seasons; he also represented South Australia an incredible 37 times in an era when competition for places was arguably as intense as at any stage in the twentieth century.
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Robert George Lavington Barnes
South Australian born, Bobbie Barnes moved with his parents to Broken Hill while he was still a youngster. It was there that he played his first senior football as a member of the West Broken Hill club, winning the league's best and fairest award, and catching the attention of Adelaide clubs when he came to the metropolis in 1918 to play in a challenge match against West Adelaide, the club for which he was eventually to make his name. Apparently, most of the Adelaide clubs, whilst impressed with Barnes' natural football ability, regarded him as being too small to succeed at league level. Not so West, which snapped him up when he moved to the city in 1921.
A clever, hyperactive rover, particularly noted for his accurate disposal of the ball, it was not long before Barnes was earning rave reviews, and he was selected to represent South Australia in his debut season. The following year saw him secure South Australian football's premier individual honour, the Magarey Medal, but he was unable to prevent his team from going down heavily to Norwood in the grand final.
Barnes continued to give West Adelaide and the state good service for another four seasons, amassing a total of 59 games and kicking 67 goals. He was West's top goalkicker in 1924, albeit with just 17 goals.
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Bruce McGregor
After winning a Hurley Medal for best and fairest in the Broken Hill Football League in 1922 Bruce McGregor was wooed by Norwood, Port Adelaide and West Adelaide. Eventually, he elected to join West, where another Broken Hill footballer, Bobbie Barnes, had made a name for himself, and over the next 7 seasons he proceeded to emulate, and indeed arguably outshine, his compatriot.
Records vary, but it is possible that McGregor won West's Best All Round Player Award as many as 6 times during his 102 game career with the club. What cannot be disputed, however, is that he won both the 1926 and 1927 Magarey Medals.
Strong overhead, McGregor was also an excellent kick, equally adept over long or short distances, and as capable with the drop kick as he was with his trademark torpedo punt.
In 1927 McGregor not only landed the Magarey Medal, he was also West Adelaide's star player throughout a finals series which culminated in a 13 point challenge final victory over North Adelaide.
With the economic privations of the Depression beginning to hit home in 1930 McGregor, along with team mate Bob Snell, the 1929 Magarey Medallist, was lured to Tasmania, where the money on offer was significantly better than at home. He spent 2 seasons as captain-coach of North Hobart but was unable to steer his charges to a flag.
In 1932 he returned to South Australia as captain-coach of South Adelaide, only to stand down as a player after just 2 games.
The McGregor lineage has continued with son Ken representing West Adelaide and South Australia with distinction in the 1950s, besides playing tennis at the highest level.
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Robert Snell
Dashing, poised and extraordinarily skilful - the editor of 'The SANFL Football Budget' once opined that "Snell's skill has to be so often lauded that one finds it difficult to describe" - Bob Snell enjoyed success at the top level in three traditional football states. He took his bows in 1923 with East Perth, having travelled to the metropolis from Collie near Bunbury anxious to prove himself in league football. It took a while, but he eventually managed to do this, earning selection the following year in two West Australian second choice eighteens which played the visiting Essendon and North Adelaide club sides.
In 1925 Snell sought a clearance to West Adelaide, but when this was refused he played instead in a variety of amateur and junior competitions. It was a similar story in 1926, but after two full years he was finally cleared to West in time for round one of the 1927 season. It did not prove to be an auspicious start: Snell missed the opening two rounds with influenza, and when he finally fronted up in round three against West Torrens he was given a proverbial 'bath' by opposing centreman Roy Brown. Gradually, however, he came good, and at season's end was a significant contributor to an unexpected, but thoroughly warranted, West Adelaide premiership victory.
Snell's best season was 1929 when he landed the Magarey Medal. (He is pictured above receiving his Medal from league chairman Thomas O'Halloran on the Adelaide Oval; it was the first ever time that the Medallist had been publicly honoured in this way.) Money was tight, however, and two seasons later Bob Snell was lining up with New Town in the TANFL, where he was paid the princely sum of £5 a match - the equivalent of a week's wage for a skilled labourer.
Returning to Adelaide, Snell finished his league career with a further two seasons at West Adelaide for an ultimate total of 84 senior games.
Jack Etwell George Sexton
Jack Sexton's premature death in 1935, aged just twenty-nine, robbed the football world of a fine player. Beginning with Glenelg in 1925 he overcame a somewhat tardy start to develop into one of the most consistent centremen in the state. In 1929 he left the Bays after a dispute over broken time payments, and it was at his subsequent club, West Adelaide, that he achieved his greatest distinction, winning the 1931 Magarey Medal. The following year saw him recruited by Fitzroy, where he spent the ensuing three seasons, captaining the club for part of the 1932 and '33 seasons. He returned to Adelaide in 1935 and assumed the role of captain-coach at Norwood, only for a severe attack of pleurisy to force him to resign just a few games into the season. Sexton never recovered, although his battle against the disease was not ultimately lost until 26 October. Throughout his career he had frequently been beset by illness and injury, and this had restricted his league appearances to just 101 in eleven seasons, comprising 47 with Glenelg, 19 with West Adelaide, 29 for Fitzroy, and half a dozen with the Redlegs. Thirty five years after his death, Jack Sexton's Magarey Medal was stolen from the home of his son; however, after an appeal in the daily papers it was soon afterwards recovered.
Ray McArthur
In 1939 Ray McArthur tied for the Magarey Medal with North Adelaide's Jeff Pash, on the same number of votes. This medal was awarded retrospectively when the SANFL agreed to award all tied medals from previous seasons.
Ronald Mark Benton
Fast, elusive and courageous, West Adelaide's Ron Benton was, in the words of Jeff Pash, "a heroic little figure" for whom "every game seems to be another survival." Over the course of his 178 game 172 goal league career between 1955 and 1959 and 1961 and 1965 he achieved virtually everything the game had to offer: a Magarey Medal and club best and fairest award in 1957, interstate football, a near best afield performance in the winning grand final of 1961 against Norwood, and West Adelaide's leading goal kicker award (with 29 goals) in 1963. He was, without doubt, one of the most illustrious players in the history of a club that, over the years, has been blessed with a disproportionately high number of top quality footballers.
Trevor Foster Grimwood
The 1977 Magarey Medal win by Trevor Grimwood completed one of the greatest ‘rags to riches’ stories in SANFL history. Grimwood came to West Adelaide in 1974 after only 33 games with Port Adelaide in the previous three seasons and even these games came after an early career at Norwood in junior and Reserves ranks, followed by several seasons with his home town, Meadows.
Although his courage and determination were never in question, his perceived lack of pace and fitness had held him back. His league career seemed over until Fos Williams, then West coach, convinced him to have one more try.
It didn’t take long for William’s faith to be justified, Grimwood’s effective ball-gathering and crumbing soon becoming clearly the best in the league. His prolific ball-getting skills initiated so many attacks and his strong attack on the ball was so apparent that he soon became a strong favourite for the 1976 Magarey Medal. His third place that year preceded his clear and comfortable win the following year. Merv Agars, in “Bloods, Sweat & Tears” wrote that “his victory was a tribute to his perseverance and his courage, especially as he was often hampered by a painful hamstring injury, which regularly necessitated pain-killing injections to keep him in the game”.
Trevor Grimwood was often seen as a ‘battler’, but he triumphed where many more naturally talented players didn’t. To win a Magarey Medal shows a player is far more than a battler. To win the medal by so comfortable a margin in a competition with so many talented SANFL players recognises not only his courage and tenacity, but also his skill.
Kenneth James Eustice
Looking every inch the clean-cut business executive in his street clothes, Ken Eustice the footballer was, ostensibly at least, equally tidy, but once he entered the fray he became a veritable dynamo whose play was replete with courage, determination and considerably more skill than was sometimes realised. Throughout his career, he set ever higher standards for himself, and was frequently frustrated when he witnessed team mates holding back, or failing to supplement their talent with maximum effort. After South Australia crumbled in the second half of the interstate championship decider against the VFL on home turf in 1969, Eustice, who had been a strong, 4 quarter performer on a wing, acidly observed, "Pressure football is only the determination to keep running and check. Some players became weary just as they do in club games. That's when they cried, 'enough'. Frankly, I thought it was a weak effort."
Eustice's own approach to the game was wholehearted in the extreme. His league coaches were unanimous in praising his attitude, both to training, and to games themselves. His propensity for running out games to their conclusion, irrespective of the scoreline or his own personal form, was a trademark.
Eustice made his senior debut with West Adelaide in 1958, and the following year broke into the state team for the first time. Thereafter, he only ever missed selection for the state when injured.
Adept in a variety of positions, Eustice starred for Westies on a wing in their 1961 grand final win over Norwood, the same position he occupied for much of a 1962 season that yielded a Magarey Medal. When playing for South Australia he was often named on a half back flank, while his 4 season stint as captain-coach of Central District saw him eke out a reputation as one of the finest centreman in the game.
Despite being a West Adelaide product, Eustice's approach to the game bore many of the characteristics espoused by Port Adelaide mentor Fos Williams, himself an avowed and ardent Eustice admirer, and it was largely because of Eustice's influence that Central District, in its early years, developed a style of play in which the old fashioned virtues of passion, aggression and determination often helped compensate for a basic lack of talent. That said, it would be wrong to suggest that Eustice saw football as a game for mindless thugs. In a coaching manual published in 1967 his key advice to young, aspiring footballers was, "Always keep your cool. Play with your head as well as your body. Try to play intelligently - but always play with determination.".
Ken Eustice finished his 224 game league career at Glenelg, winning a best and fairest award in 1969 to add to his 1967 win with Centrals. Somewhat surprisingly, he never managed to win West Adelaide's top award, but there can be little doubt of his right to be regarded as one of that club's - and South Australia's - finest ever footballers.
Grantley Craig Fielke
With a club record 364 games with West Adelaide, 16 with Collingwood, 24 with Adelaide and 9 State appearances, Grantley Fielke remains one of the most skillful exponents of our game. Notching up so many games in both the SANFL and AFL stands as testament to the skill of the man, a hard-running onballer with excellent disposal.
During a period that South Australia produced a generation of talented rovers, centremen, wingmen and onballers Fielke was selected to represent South Australia on nine occasions, performing among the best with the likes of Bradley, Naley and Platten.
Glenn Matthew Kilpatrick
Tying for the 1995 Magarey Medal with Norwood stalwart Gary McIntosh, Kilpatrick had a stellar season with the Bloods and was drafted by Geelong in the 1996 draft. A quality onballer drafted from Essendon in 1995 Kilpatrick only played the one season with West Adelaide but his quality, smooth skills shone through to help the Bloods make the final series in 1995 under Geoff Morris. Despite winning the Magarey Medal that year Kilpatrick was not named West Adelaide's best and fairest, that honour going to Anthony Banik.
After being drafted by Geelong in 1996 Kilpatrick was the 1997 runner up in the Cats' best and fairest as well as being voted the Most Improved Player in the same year. In 1999 he attracted the most Brownlow Medal votes of any player at Geelong and played 120 games with Geelong (146 in AFL games in total).
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