HAPPY DAYS

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HAPPY DAYS by Whispering Jack

It took a brief discussion on Melbourne radio station SEN on Friday afternoon between Francis Leach and former Demon champion forward David Schwarz to bring out the nostalgia.

Leach asked the Ox who was the most talented footballer he played with during his career and, after a break for half a dozen commercials and station identification, the reply came that it had to be Allen Jakovich, the enigmatic Demon who had a meteoric rise and fall as a prolific AFL full forward in an all too short career that spanned in total less than four seasons from 1991 to 1994, netted 47 games and yielded 201 goals for Melbourne. He also played 7 games and kicked 7 goals for Footscray in 1996.

Jako was born on 21 March 1969 and spent his earlier career as a journeyman having two stints at South Fremantle separated by spells at Port Hedland, Kalgoorlie and Darwin where he booted 104 goals for Southern Districts in the 1988/1989 season. He then moved to Adelaide where he played for SANFL club Woodville kicking 101 goals in 1990.

During 1990 Schwarz, who came from Sunbury then part of the Demons' country residential zone, was playing for the Under 19's. Jakovich joined him at Melbourne when the club surprised by calling out the 187cm 98 kg forward's name at the AFL's 1990 National Draft at number four.

Back in those days there was no internet, phantom drafts were unheard of and a small group of people turned up at the draft meeting, the results being relayed by fax to the media and most people discovered who their club had drafted days, weeks or even months later when the practice matches started. There was no draft camp, no sprint and beep testing, no psychological and aptitude profiling or cross examination of players' schoolteachers and maiden aunts to ascertain whether they were suited to play professional football. If they were good footballers, they usually got the gig.

This was fortuitous for Jakovich because, despite his competitive urges, I somehow doubt whether he would have come out of the testing very well, if at all. Schwarz explained on radio that Jako unfortunately never got the most out of himself because of his casual attitude towards most things, particularly training. He was rarely seen at the club during pre season except when it came to the annual country v city cricket game and then his bad back somehow evaporated and he would do everything - bat, bowl, field and keep wickets.

Jakovich spent almost the whole of the first half of 1991 with the Melbourne reserves and had passed 50 goals in that competition before making his breakthrough at senior level. He continued to produce big goal hauls including a sensational game against North Melbourne at the MCG when he kicked 11 goals including a miraculous scissor kick out of mid-air from twenty metres out and banana kick goal after the three quarter time siren from an impossible angle. He had eight other shots at goal that day with one of them going out on the full.

That performance made him the fastest player to score his first fifty goals, taking only nine games to do so and he finished his debut season with 71 goals; becoming one of a few VFL/AFL players to boot 50 goals in both the seniors and reserves in the same season.

The following year, he snagged seven majors in round one and reached a career total of 100 goals in just his 21st game – a VFL/AFL record that is unlikely to ever be beaten (it took Hawthorn's Jason Dunstall 36 games to reach 100 career goals while Lance Franklin achieved the feat in his 49th game).

To my mind, Allen Jakovich was the Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of his day. He was unpredictable, mercurial and defied convention. He was the leader of an alternative pack who did the unusual. He would often high five fans in the front rows after kicking goals but when Jako/Fonz slotted one through from well outside fifty metres to put Melbourne in front of West Coast one afternoon, he created a sensation by planting a kiss on the cheek of his brother, Eagle Glen Jakovich. He always lifted against Collingwood and his antics would drive their supporters to distraction. He destroyed Essendon one day at Waverley Park when he kicked a lazy seven goals in the last half in an elimination final after being virtually unsighted in the first two quarters of the game.

Jakovich appeared in a band on a channel nine grand final special at the end of 1993. That programme emerged as the Footy Show and it was there that he made one of his few subsequent public appearances a few years after his retirement.

Call it karma or whatever but Jako's condition gave out after a brilliant performance against Hawthorn at Princess Park in mid 1994 in which he booted eight goals. The Demons had a brilliant finals series even without him that year with Garry Lyon and David Schwarz shining up forward. Who knows what might have been had the club had a fit Jako prowling around the forward line?

As it happened, the injury saw off his career at Melbourne at a time when injuries struck so many others in the red and blue – Schwarz, Lyon, Paul Prymke, Glen Lovett, Steven Tingay all missed large slabs of the following seasons. Another promising individual Martin Pyke was cleared to Fitzroy for disciplinary reasons and Jakovich, plagued by back related hamstring problems, crossed to the Bulldogs. The happy days were over and Jako disappeared from the scene.

There was mystery about his whereabouts for a long time. According to his brother Glen, he was involved in a fishing charter company on Australia's east coast. Perhaps, he's in Coffs Harbour where there have been sightings but football has never seen another of his like and probably never will. I'm not so sure whether clubs are even interested in another Jako/Fonz character because these days, they all seem to be more akin to Richie Cunningham – the good boys who test well athletically, read out of the same hymn book and certainly have not the slightest question mark or blemish to their characters.

There will never be another Allen Jakovich but I bring up the name of a youngster from the Murray Bushrangers who perhaps might get to wear Jako's number 13 (especially now that another former Bushie in Adem Yze has retired) if only someone at Melbourne decides he's worth drafting. His name is Tom Rockliff, an 18 year old medium forward, the leading goal kicker in the TAC Cup with 59 goals, winner of his team's best and fairest, a state representative with Victoria Country and a member of the TAC Cup Team of the Year. His coach Phil Bunn describes the Benalla lad as "not big, not quick, not athletic, he hasn't got super endurance, he's just an absolute natural footballer who tends to see things half a second before others see them. In other words, he'll take himself to the right spot just a bit quicker than what others do and that's a gift. It's a natural thing you can't coach".

I saw Rockliff collect 30 disposals for four goals and an equal number of goal assists in a scintillating TAC Cup grand final display. His efforts were totally overshadowed by the 10 goal performance of Collingwood draftee Steele Sidebottom but I reckon Rockliff was not that far behind. Until that grand final match, I thought of Rockliff as a bit of a one trick pony as a smallish forward but he also went into the midfield and played down back in the game as well. He has had two stellar years at Under 18 level but Bunn explains that he "hasn't really been able to do a full preseason ... He's as footy smart a boy as I've ever coached."

Which reminds me of another forward from happier days.