Star Richmond spearhead Jack Riewoldt continues to keep the football historians diving for their record books . . .
Last Saturday, Riewoldt became the first Tiger player to win the Ian Stewart Medal, when the Channel Ten commentators voted him best on ground following his superb seven-goal display in the team’s 21-point loss to St Kilda at Etihad Stadium. And, Riewoldt is the first key forward to take ‘Stewie’ home since the medal’s inception in 2004.
Previous winners of the Ian Stewart Medal were:
2004 - Austinn Jones, St Kilda
2005 - Nick Dal Santo, St Kilda
2006 - Lenny Hayes, St Kilda
2007 - Leigh Montagna, St Kilda
2008 - Stephen Milne, St Kilda
2009 - Brendon Goddard, St Kilda
The Ian Stewart Medal was struck six years ago, in recognition of the only player in league football history to win Brownlow Medals and premierships at two clubs.
Stewart played 127 games with St Kilda from 1963-70. He also won back-to-back Brownlow Medals with the Saints in 1965-66, and was a member of their only premiership side, in 1966.
In 1971, Stewart joined Richmond in a sensational swap for dual Tiger premiership player Bill Barrot.
‘Stewie’ went on to play 78 games with Richmond from 1971-75. He won the Brownlow Medal in his debut season with the Tigers, as well as the Club’s Best and Fairest award that year.
Two years later, he was a key member of the Richmond side that defeated Carlton by 30 points in the 1973 Grand Final.
“While individual medals are certainly not a focus of mine, it’s a great honor to win a medal that recognises one of the game’s all-time greats, and a Tasmanian, too,” Riewoldt said.
“Obviously, I never got the chance to see Ian play, but I am fully aware of what a brilliant footballer he was, and the impact he had at both St Kilda and Richmond during his league career.”
Riewoldt’s seven-goal haul against the Saints last Saturday took his season’s tally to 75 - six ahead of his nearest rival, Bulldog Barry Hall, in the race for the 2010 Coleman Medal, with just one round remaining.
If Riewoldt wins the Coleman Medal, would become the first Richmond player to do so since Michael Roach went back-to-back in 1980-81.
Roach was the Tigers’ first winner of the Coleman Medal (presented by the league since 1955, the year after the great John Coleman retired), in 1980, with 107 goals in the home-and-away rounds. He booted a further five in the finals series, for an all-up season’s total of 112. And, Roach took out the competition’s leading goalkicker award again in 1981, with 86 goals for the home-and-away season.
Before then, you had to go all the way back to 1940 to find the previous time a Tiger topped the league’s goalkicking at the end of the home-and-away rounds. That was when Jack Titus scored 92 home-and-away goals in the ’40 season, and a further eight in the finals series, to chalk up the ton (100 goals exactly).
Three years earlier, Dick Harris took out the competition’s leading goalkicker award, with 64 goals in the home-and-away rounds. In 1943, Harris finished 10 goals behind Melbourne’s Fred Fanning at the end of the home-and-away season, with 52, but kicked 11 in the finals series, as the Tigers took out the premiership, to finish with a total of 63 goals and the No. 1 spot on the competition’s goalkicking table.
In 1920, the year of Richmond’s inaugural premiership in the then VFL competition, George Bayliss became the first Tiger to top the goalkicking, with 62 goals in the home-and-away season.
Roach, Titus, Harris and Bayliss are the only Richmond players to have won the competition’s leading goalkicker award.
