Rodger Head’s career with St Kilda could have easily been filed away as that of a talented schoolboy footballer who was waylaid by injuries at the top level.
But Rodger Head, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 73, turned around an ill-starred beginning to become a fine footballer for the Saints and play a part in the club’s greatest moment as a member of the 1966 Premiership side.
In 1960 he broke one leg, came back for a few weeks and then promptly broke the other leg. By the last month of his fourth season he had only one full senior game to his credit and that was the one in which he broke his leg.
He had sat on the bench 11 times, but in an era before interchange he would often only get a few minutes on the ground in the latter stages of a game. In later years he would joke that he had plenty of opportunities to watch St Kilda’s famous defence of the early 1960s as they went about their business. It was no easy job to break into that closely meshed six. All of them - Brian Walsh, Verdun Howell, Bud Annand, Jim Guyatt, Neil Roberts and Eric Guy represented Victoria and two - Roberts and Howell were Brownlow Medallists.
As a teenager at Haileybury College he won so many sporting trophies that a classmate had to help him carry them off the stage. He then played a year of senior footy with Black Rock, after having had a brief tryout with St Kilda. Ex-Saint Ken Mulhall was then playing for an opposing Federal League team Bentleigh, and talked Head into having another attempt with the Saints. The leg injuries and the locked in defence meant that he only had limited chances. He had a run of senior games in 1963, but it wasn’t until Walsh retired at the end of 1964 that he was able to stake a permanent claim in the back-pocket.
In that post he would be the back-up to two of St Kilda’s greatest full-backs - Verdun Howell then Bob Murray. A compact, strong footballer, Head would have to counter some of the game’s great small men when they took a spell in the forward pocket. The names of Bill Goggin, John Birt and Ian Law always loomed as clever and dangerous, but Head usually managed to counter them.
He played in the 1965 Grand Final side and actually rated that team as better than the one he was famously part of, a year later. He was involved in controversy in the ’66 second semi when it was thought he had been penalised for shovelling the ball through for a point, but he said later that the free had actually been paid against a teammate for pushing a Magpie in the back.
When Bob Murray took the closing mark of the 1966 Grand Final, Head was 10-15 yards behind him. His main recollection was that if Murray missed the mark “I would have to do something”. He was saved that task by Murray’s superb mark and remains the only man to play in both a reserves (1961) and senior premiership side for the Saints.
But Head’s career would end in early 1967 just as he was approaching his 28th birthday. As a Stockbroker he had a huge workload in the famous Poseidon boom. He recalled how his company had a staff of 12 which mushroomed to 350 in the space of three months. St Kilda tried to cajole him into playing again and said he could play in the reserves and see if things picked up. But when chosen to play against Fitzroy he was so preoccupied with work that he went to the old Fitzroy ground instead of Carlton where the Lions were now playing their home games. It was time to hang up the boots.
Rodger Head always maintained his interest in St Kilda, returning to the club as a Board Member in the Lindsay Fox era in the early 1980s.
A successful businessman and popular with his teammates, the man in the No.1 guernsey was an integral part of the Saints greatest era. He is the third member of that famous 1966 side to pass away, after Travis Payze and Darrel Baldock. Coach Allan Jeans also died last year.
St Kilda will be wearing black armbands against the Brisbane Lions this Saturday in memory of Rodger Head.
