Dane Swan and Kelvin Templeton, the winners of the Brownlow Medal, have been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in recognition of their dazzling achievements to the game.
Tuesday night’s Melbourne gala event featured the official induction of Hawthorn’s champion goal-kicker Jason Dunstall as a Legend. Swan and Templeton were two of the six new entrants announced.
Acknowledgments were also made for Indigenous speedster Michael Graham, West Perth great Ray Schofield, pioneer Ralph Robertson of New South Wales, and inaugural Adelaide Crows captain Chris McDermott.
Swan, who is adored by a horde of supporters known as the Magpie Army, led Collingwood’s renowned “rat pack” during their prosperous run under legendary coaches Mick Malthouse and Nathan Buckley.
Swan was a true competitor on the field, but he was criticized occasionally for not having the appearance of a professional athlete and for courting his fair share of off-field trouble.
The prolific midfielder set a record the following season when he won the Brownlow Medal with 34 votes under the 3-2-1 system, and he was a major factor in the Magpies’ 2010 triumph under Malthouse.
In addition, he was an All-Australian for five seasons running from 2009 to 2013, and he won the Collingwood best-and-fairest award, the Copeland Trophy, three times in a row from 2008 to 2010.
Malthouse maintains that Swan’s success was largely due to his behind-the-scenes attitude to football, which contradicted his public image.
“Dane is the kind of guy that seems a little loose at times, but he’s a really proud individual. In a video ode to Swan, Malthouse remarked, “I can see the other side of Dane.”
“Many people are unaware that he would enter the altitude chamber, turn on the heaters to 30 degrees, and raise the temperature to almost 4000 meters. He would then turn on the running machine without making any announcements, and he would leave with the knowledge that he could finish a match with enough speed and strength to defeat any tagger and anyone in the middle.
“That was his secret.”
After 258 games in all, Swan retired in 2016 due to a major foot ailment.
In 1980, Templeton earned his Brownlow Medal after an outstanding time at Footscray, when he scored 494 goals in 143 games.
As the top goal-kicker in the VFL, he won the Coleman Medal in 1978 and 1979. He also won the Bulldogs’ best-and-fairest award twice (1978,1980)
Before playing 34 games and scoring 99 goals in three years with Melbourne, Templeton captained the Bulldogs in 1982. He retired in 1985.
Later, he was the chief executive officer of the Sydney Swans from 1995 to 2002, during which time he oversaw the team’s transformation from a struggling South Melbourne team into an AFL juggernaut both on and off the field.
Prior to being selected to captain Glenelg and participate in two SANFL premierships, McDermott was the captain of the Crows for four seasons, beginning with the team’s first AFL campaign in 1991.
He won the best-and-fairest competition four times, three times with Glenelg (1986–1988) and once with Adelaide (1992). From 1997 to 2000, he also coached North Adelaide in the SANFL.
Known as “The Flash,” Graham, an Indigenous player who was selected for the Team of the Century, is considered to be among the fastest and most skilled players of his generation and was essential to Sturt’s success in the 1970s.
The half-forward flanker, a two-time SANFL premiership player, also played for St. Mary’s in three NTFL premiership sides.
Robertson played over 150 games for North Shore and East Sydney in New South Wales, captaining both teams and taking home a premiership with each until he was killed in action in 1917.
He played 14 games for St Kilda in the newly created VFL in 1899–1900 and captained NSW in three different national carnivals.
Having played 21 times for Western Australia and 277 games for the club, Schofield is a legend of West Perth.
Over the course of a 16-year career, he played in two premierships with the Cardinals, as they were then called, in 1949 and 1951. He also earned five best-and-fairest medals.
In addition to coaching West Perth in his final season, Schofield captained the team in 1952 and 1957–58.
It was confirmed in April that Dunstall would become the 32nd Legend in the game.
Dunstall, who played in four premierships with Hawthorn, scored 1254 goals in 269 games throughout his illustrious AFL/VFL career before retiring in 1998 due to injury.
On the competition’s all-time list of top goal-kickers, only Gordon Coventry (1299) and Tony Lockett (1360) rank higher.
As soon as Dunstall was eligible, in 2002, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
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