Footscray full forward, Jack Collins, kicked 7 goals in Footscray’s demolition of Melbourne in the 1954 Grand Final. He proved too skilful in the air and too quick on the lead for his opponent, Lance Arnold.
Collins was confident of success right from the start. ‘We got the first hit out of the game, Harvey Stevens got the ball and Dougy Reynolds picked it up and dashed forward and that was it. It set the ball rolling,’ he said.
By quarter time the Bulldogs had opened up a 29 point lead and big Jack had three goals on the board which gave him ‘a lot of confidence’, particularly as ‘Peter Box was playing well at centre half forward and Roger Duffy was bamboozling his opponent, with his left foot dashes,’ Collins recently recalled, in an interview to be shown at the 50th Anniversary Premiership celebration dinner to be held at Crown Palladium on April 8.
Collins said the players were pumped at the quarter time huddle and couldn’t wait to get back into position for the second quarter.
Melbourne provided some resistance in the second term and, at one stage, fought their way back into the game. However, there was certainly no need for panic in the Bulldog camp as Collins explained: ‘We had a backline of Donald, Henderson, Bryden, Martin, Whitten and Gallagher who had the least number of points kicked against them in the history of League football to that stage.
They were just a magnificent backline. We knew it was going to be hard for Melbourne to score a winning score…we were just on top in too many positions right around the ground.’
Collins also believed that Melbourne were an inexperienced combination in 1954 compared to Footscray’s more settled unit.
‘Melbourne had a lot of young players who were starting off, who were to be great players for the Melbourne Football Club, who were to go on and play in 4 or 5 or 6 Premiership teams…They were just raw rookies and it was just asking a bit too much for them, and don't forget they were fourth on the ladder and it was very hard in those days for a team who finished fourth to win a Premiership,’ he said.
Melbourne would go on to win Premierships in five of the next six seasons and to prove themselves one of the greatest sides of any era but, for Collins and his team-mates, the Premiership victory of ’54 was a special day, and one that has not been repeated since.
At the end of the game, thousands of Bulldog supporters swarmed onto the ground and converged on their heroes. ‘Charlie and Teddy and I were carried up [the race], we were on cloud nine, we got in the rooms and everyone was going mad,’ Collins said.
Collins described the after-match celebrations starting with the dinner at the Mayfair Hotel as a ‘fiasco’. Later in the evening when supporters and players carried on their celebrations at the Western Oval, Collins laments, ‘There wasn’t even a glass of water’ in sight.
Asked whether he had enjoyed the night’s festivities, Collins jokingly replied, ‘I don't remember going to bed,’ before admitting he was probably in by 2:00 or 3:00am.
