Push to streamline State footy records
The rich history of three coaches involved in more senior matches than new AFL record holder Mick Malthouse has prompted the WA Football Commission and its South Australian counterpart to stage a joint bid to standardise all pre-AFL Australian football records.
Malthouse was lauded last week when he coached his 715th match to break the VFL record of former Collingwood mentor Jock McHale.
But administrators and historians in the other two major football States are eager to have their own indigenous records recognised as being equal to the VFL before the emergence of the AFL as an expanded national league.
The two States intend to make a joint submission to the AFL commission to seek a definitive ruling on all records prior to the start of the national competition.
They claim that the coaching records of Jack Oatey (777 SANFL matches), John Todd (728 WAFL and AFL matches) and Haydn Bunton Jr (also 728 SANFL and WAFL matches) should be considered alongside McHale’s 714 games.
“We are saying that the VFL, as a State league, was no different to the WAFL and the SANFL,” a commission source said.
“All records before the game changed fundamentally with the introduction of the AFL — either from 1987 with the expansion to a national league or 1990 when the new name was formally adopted — should be considered on a par.
“Malthouse can hold the AFL record but he has only broken a VFL record, not one for the most senior games as coach.”
Games played and coached records, and most goals kicked, are the most significant records requiring clarification.
Australian Hall of Fame legend Barry Cable has been arguing for much of the past decade that the WAFL’s history for its first century should be considered alongside the VFL and SANFL.
Cable toldThe West Australian last year of his frustration whenever he heard the comment that Sydney’s Adam Goodes had played more matches than any other Aboriginal player, or that Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher was poised to join Michael Tuck and Kevin Bartlett as the only players with 400 senior games.
WA and SA will point to the Australian Hall of Fame as the template for historic recognition of games played and coached.
The Hall of Fame does not differentiate between leagues and says in its charter only that an inductee needs to have made “a significant contribution to Australian football at any level”.
