Royce Hart – the Richmond star who won a best and fairest and VFL premiership while living in Adelaide and training with Glenelg – has been named a legend of the game.

Hart, who was flattened in the 1969 SANFL Grand Final against Sturt, might have noticed the slight twist of coincidence when Sturt seven-time best-and-fairest winner Rick Davies became South Australia’s 34th inductee to the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

The Hart story is part of Glenelg folklore, just as the Davies story is entwined with Sturt’s great days.

In 1969 Richmond won all three finals from fourth place to win the flag. Hart won the club best and fairest and was named All-Australian centre half forward.

He achieved this while based in Adelaide with the Royal Australian Artillery as part of his National Service.
Hart had been allowed to train with South Australian league club Glenelg and fly to Melbourne on weekends.

Glenelg looked set to get their share of the Hart magic when they made the SANFL Grand Final and Royce agreed to play.

Hart, however, was lined up by his opposing Sturt player and knocked out early in the game.

While he still collected 20 possessions, Glenelg lost.

The Adelaide chapter is a small part of the Hart story and last night the Richmond legend reflected on his sporting life as he was made the 25th official legend of Australian Football at Parliament House in Canberra.

Hart told the gathering he hasn’t forgotten the faces of Tiger supporters after he helped deliver the AFL club’s drought-breaking 1967 premiership.

And the four-time premiership centre half-forward remembered supporters again.

“I would like to thank all my coaches, my teammates and particularly the supporters,” Hart said.

The centre half-forward in the AFL’s Team of the Century, Tasmanian-born Hart recalled spending two years bulking up to make the senior side and still having to use his great spring to beat taller opponents.

“I felt if I played side by side with my opponent, the centre half-back, I’d be outgunned,” the 187cm Hart said.

Famously, he leapt on top of Geelong opponent Peter Walker to take a match-clinching mark late in the grand final in his 1967 debut season.

The scene in the rooms afterwards hasn’t left him.

“It was over 20 years since they’d won a flag,” Hart said.

“None of the players in ’67, believe it or not, had played in a final.

“We ended up winning the game and just the look on the people’s faces that came into the rooms that had been following the club for so long and winning the premiership was just exciting.”

Hart starred in three more flags – in 1969 and 1973-74.

Davies inducted

Sturt seven-time best-and-fairest winner Rick Davies is South Australia’s 34th inductee to the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
And the champ took great delight in again sticking it to rival club Port Adelaide.

At last night’s induction ceremony in Canberra, Davies described helping the SANFL club beat fierce rivals Port Adelaide in the 1976 grand final, when he had 42 disposals and 15 marks, as the highlight of his life.

“Everything just went right – a bit like tonight,” Davies said.

Davies kicked 838 goals across a 17-year career in which he played 390 games with Sturt, South Adelaide, Hawthorn and South Australia.

“It was my day-to-day life in the 1970s and ’80s … and it was the best time of my life,” Davies told sanfl.com.au.

“I never wanted for anything while I was in football. I was the luckiest guy in the world. I’ve also been lucky that I was able to get on with life after football. And how lucky was I in football? I was living a kid’s perfect dream.”

Davies’ came from a farming family at Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula.

His career started as an 18-year-old in 1970 under legendary Double Blues coach Jack Oatey.

He won seven best-and-fairest awards at Unley between 1973 and 1980.

His recall of that Grand Final day in 1976 is still crystal clear.

With 21 kicks, 21 handballs, 21 hitouts and 15 marks, Davies was instrumental in Sturt’s memorable 41-point victory.

“On the day, the whole atmosphere – with people inside the boundary – is one I will never forget,’’ Davies recalled.

“From the first bounce of the ball, I knew it was going to be one of those days. Everything fell into place. It was the perfect day … and I did not go home for a week.’’

Davies made the shift to the VFL in 1981 to play for Hawthorn, but returned a year later to play as a forward with Sturt.

In 1983 Davies became the first player to kick 150 goals in an SANFL season.

Now retired, Davies – an inaugural inductee into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame – has lived in Perth for the past 13 years.

Four other players and one umpire were inducted into the Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.

Melbourne great Hassa Mann told how the Demons went to court to free him from national service.

He afterwards discovered that lawyers on both sides and the judge were all Melbourne supporters.

Scott West, who won a club-record seven best and fairests with the Western Bulldogs, said a “hole” in his career remained because he never won a flag.

Three-time Coleman Medallist Matthew Lloyd, who kicked 926 goals for Essendon, told how Bombers hard men Dean Wallis and Mark Harvey warned him after he’d been intimidated by an opponent early in his career that he’d be forced from the sport unless he toughened up.

Umpire Bryan Sheehan, who officiated in six AFL grand finals, was also inducted, along with Brian Peake, a six-time best and fairest winner and Sandover Medallist with East Fremantle and 66-game Geelong player.

– with AAP and sanfl.com.au