AFL RIVERINA RECORD – ROUND 4
Greg Smith was worried when told a few years ago
that East Wagga-Kooringal and the Northern Jets
would like to play for a trophy struck in his honour.
“I said, ‘They usually name those after people who are
dead! It doesn’t have ‘memorial’ on it, does it?’”
This weekend, he’s back at Gumly Oval for the fourth
edition of the Greg Smith Trophy. “It gives you a sense
of pride. You don’t look for these things but it’s nice to
be remembered.”
Smith had already made his name at Ardlethan in
the South Western District Football League before he
joined the Hawks in 1978.
After two seasons at East Wagga-Kooringal, he’d won a
Farrer League Baz Medal, two club best-and-fairests, a
premiership, a VFL contract, and legend status at two
Riverina clubs.
Smith went on to play 96 games with South Melbourne/
Sydney and 31 for Collingwood. He was
nicknamed the ‘Bionic Man’ by Lou Richards, who saw
him return to the field after a serious shoulder injury
and kick the winning point. “We had a few injured but
I was the only bloke who could still run. I had to go
back on,” Smith says with a laugh.
Acknowledging a club great is about inspiration as
well as celebration at the Hawks. “It’s great to show
our young players – he made the top level and he did
it through our club,” says club president Rob Richards.
“It shows them that if you’ve got the ability and you
work hard, you can do it. We’ve also got Matt Suckling
now too. They all can see what Matt is doing. Greg
Smith they might not know but if they look at his
record, they go – wow! It’s phenomenal.”
Senior coach Gavin McMahon knew the Smith name
carried great weight at the club a decade after he’d
left.
“When I played my first senior game, Barry Suckling
was captain-coach,” McMahon remembers.
“He handed me the number four jumper, which was
the number worn by Greg. I didn’t know him, but I certainly
knew about the impact he’d had. And that it was
a very prestigious thing to be wearing his number.”
Recognising the club’s heritage is a key part of the
Hawks’ approach for the future.
“We are just a small speck in the history of the club in
our time playing,” McMahon says. “So we talk about
what it means to make an impact, to leave a legacy.
Because there’s plenty that have left legacies before
us.”
Luring McMahon home to the Hawks, as a non-playing
coach, was an important step for Richards.
“It was not only the quality of his coaching and his
football experience, but Gav’s also a former junior. And
we’re focussed on getting former juniors, and people
with family connections, back to the club. You’ve got
to recruit good people first, and good footballers will
follow.”
McMahon has the same philosophy. “I’m as passionate
as the next bloke about winning games and premierships.
But to have a successful club, you need the right
environment, and that’s a family environment – a
place that people want to come to and be a part of.
And that’s what we’re doing.”
Ironically, it was when McMahon took his family to the
US for two years that the value of Australian football
clubs hit home.
“The first thing we needed to do was to meet people
and we thought let’s join a baseball club, or something.
But we found there was no real structure for
social sport in the US. There’s high school sport, college
sport, and pro sport, but for the average punter
they don’t have what we have here. We showed our
American friends the set-up of our local clubs when
they came to visit … and they were just absolutely
blown away.”
He’s driven by a desire to see his junior club thrive. The
Hawks are proud of fielding an Under 17s team for the
first time in three years, and are focussing on the link
between the junior and senior footy clubs to shore up
their future.
Although the transition to seniors might be different
to what Greg Smith experienced 40 years ago: “I was
only 14-and-a-half when I played my first senior game
for Ardlethan. It was against Narrandera. The bloke I
was on asked me if it was my first game, and I said yes.
He went WHACK in the nose. Blood was pouring out
everywhere. I thought ‘bloody hell, next time I’ll say
no!”
To view the entire record from round 4 please click on linkb below:
