SA Footy

Have been thinking a bit about this recently ... Currently at Norwood we have Brett Zorsi who was recruited as a midfielder, but didn't set the world on fire early before being thrown to Full Back and subsequently made that position his own.

Previously we had Dale Fleming, recruited as a forward, who again was thrown Back at some stage and made Full Back his own.

Others I can think of, are Tim Evans (CHB-->FF) and Roger Delaney (FF-->FB) ... I don't know enough about previous era's, but I thought I read/heard somewhere, Malcolm Greenslade was capable at both ends of the ground.

Any other players who didn't set the world on fire until after a pretty big positional switch?

Doug Thomas played state football at full-back and full-forward.

Arguably one of the great SANFL positional switches has to be D B "Fred" Phillis from Full forward to Full Back under John Nichols

Des O'Dwyer kicked 10 goals in a match for Norwood, then went to Woodville and played full back. May have represented the state at FB, IIRC.

Daniel Schell comes to mind, but he made a success of both FF & CHB.

Will have a think about the actual question asked and get back.

Ron Phllips won his first Magarey Medal as a Centre Half Back and a year later won it again playing Centre Half forward.

Darrell Cahill was a state half back flanker who later on in his career roved for the state.

I think Zorzi actually played a bit in defence in the VFL too. I can recall seeing him play 'down back'.

Keith Kuhlmann started as a CHF with Westies before Fos switched him to FB.
I guess lots of rovers switched to the back pocket, like Jeff Potter, Rex Voigt.
Russell Ebert started as a FF.
Craig Williams came over as CHF and became an All Australian FB.

robranosgod wrote:Ron Phllips won his first Magarey Medal as a Centre Half Back and a year later won it again playing Centre Half forward.

Far out, thats a pretty huge performance

FF to FB seems a common one. I know some of these have already been mentioned but:
- Paul Arnold
- Des O'Dwyer
- Roger Delaney

Others off the top of my head:
- Scott Morphett went from the midfield to FF (not 100% sure where he started)?
- Jim West went from FB to FF/CHF
- Tony Hall was hanging around the HBF until being released to CHF in 1986 when Kernahan left
- Nigel Smart stepped up from midfield SANFL to FB at AFL
- George Fiacchi made the back pocket his own after struggling elsewhere IIRC
- I'm not sure if Craig Balme arrived at Norwood as a ruckman?

Another good thread CP!

Cheers Hondo.

Some good ones there you mentioned which I should have recalled, particularly Paul Arnold.

I nearly made mention of Fiacchi, who might have come through as a Rover(?) and Craig Balme definitely came across as either a CHB or Ruckman ... He matched up pretty well on an aging Tim Evans, but he wasn't a natural Full Back.

I guess the success stories with these is likely 1 of 3 scenario's:

- A player trying to make his mark isn't setting the world on fire and is eventually tried in an entirely different/opposite position, and it agree's with them
- A player entering the latter stages of his career moving back to a different position.
- Player is a natural swingman .. Ie, Bruce Winter - As comfortable at FF was he was at FB over 300+ games.

Oh, wrong end of the stick here, I thought this was a thread about the karma sutra.

Dogwatcher wrote:Oh, wrong end of the stick here, I thought this was a thread about the karma sutra.

otherwise dermie would be a good person to interview about that.

Doggies 5 time Premiership player Yves Sibenaler started his career as a full forward. I think he may have even kicked 5 on debut against Port at Elizabeth before making the switch into defence and being a reliable defender since.

This was laso the case with recently retired Dogs player Jeremy Aufderhiede. He also started as a forward and I remember him kicking 7 goals in a pre season trial in the early 2000's but he too went on to carve out a solid league career as a key defender.

Richie Cochrane was a small crumbing forward starting his league career with the Dogs and has gone on to be one of our best ever back pocket players with 5 flags to his name as well.

am Bays wrote:Arguably one of the great SANFL positional switches has to be D B "Fred" Phillis from Full forward to Full Back under John Nichols

Didn't he also turn Cornes from a ruck-rover into a goalkicking forward that year?

Tom Warhurst started out in the Norwood league team for his first 5-10 games as a key forward, with the Legs hoping he would become that, and he badly tore a hamstring late in 81 from memory and lost his place in the side. Went back in 82 to defence, and never really got up the ground again.

Also, was Bruce Winter mostly a forward at Sturt????

Barrie Robran was good when he started at CHF then went to RR, Ruck, Rover, Wing, FF, HF, Forward Pocket & CHB. Not sure if he played the other defensive positions but he could have/should have

Never saw him master the bench though so that was a weakness.

rogernumber10 wrote:

am Bays wrote:Arguably one of the great SANFL positional switches has to be D B "Fred" Phillis from Full forward to Full Back under John Nichols

Didn't he also turn Cornes from a ruck-rover into a goalkicking forward that year?

yep 77 goals IIRC, 2nd to Evans in the goal kicking

am Bays wrote:Arguably one of the great SANFL positional switches has to be D B "Fred" Phillis from Full forward to Full Back under John Nichols

That was after Neil Kerley took Fred Phillis from CHB to FF in 1968.

The trend back in the 60s and 70s was the number of successful rovers who played the second half of their careers in the back pocket. Some examples are Colin Richens, Trevor Obst, Geoff Paull, Rex Voigt, Tony Shaw, Greg Nicholson, and I'm sure there have been others.

Another player in the 60s who springs to mind is West Adelaide's David Jonas who transfered off the HB flank to become a more than handy FF at Westies.

rogernumber10 wrote:Also, was Bruce Winter mostly a forward at Sturt????

Not really, he began as a FB and migrated to CHF.

Russell Ebert began in 1968 at Full Forward, Peter Marker began in 1967 as a CHF. Both became champion centremen.

Graham Cornes played his first game as knock ruckman, believe it or not, then settled into ruck roving after returning from Vietnam.