ANY man who can snare almost 70 goals while Yartapuulti full forward Tim Evans is repeatedly rewriting club and SANFL records is bound to become a defender's torment ... and the fans' favourite.
The goals were on a production line at Alberton in 1980 when Yartapuulti became the first - and still the only - SANFL team to score more than 3000 points (3176 to be precise) in 22 home-and-away games.
Evans rewrote Ken Farmer's long-standing record for most goals in a season with 146 goals including a club record 16 against West Adelaide at Alberton Oval on May 3. He had space to lead into, he had elite players such as Russell Ebert to deliver the Ross Faulkner lace out ... and his vice-like hands left little for any small forward to feast on.
"Kicked almost 70 that year ...," recalls Ross Agius, the seventh player of First Nations heritage to represent the Yartapuulti Football Club. "And Greg Boyd put up another 60.
"We would get out there with the message from Tim always the same: 'Piss off! This is my area.' You gonna argue with that? Jack (senior coach John Cahill) would say, 'Ross, you are a good reader of the ball; just read the ball.'"
For 53 SANFL league games - in a career brought to an end by persistent knee injuries - Agius read the ball off a wing or a half-forward flank to kick 103 goals, a two-goal-a-game average that fulfilled the fans' dreams for entertaining football and gave every defender a nightmare.
"We had some fun in those days," says Agius of a style of Australian football - long-kicking, fast-moving football - that made the game a joy to play and watch. "You gave forwards a chance in those days."
Agius, today 61, lived the dream of every lad on the LeFevre peninsula during the 1970s. Born at Point Pearce on the Yorke Peninsula, Agius moved to Taperoo to live with his grandmother until her death when he was 14. He then moved to Athol Park to live with an uncle and aunt ... and start his football journey at the Rosewater Football Club.
"Let's say we struggled through life, but they were still wonderful years," Agius recalls.
"Bruce Abernethy and me waiting at Rosewater to get the call up to Port Adelaide ..."
Agius made it first. August 16, 1979 - round 19 - in a 91-point thrashing of Central District at Alberton Oval.
"First game ... first kick (a free kick against Richard Cochrane) and a goal at Alberton Oval. Still my favourite memory of football. First game. First kick. First goal.
"Bruce (Abernethy) was soon there. Me on one wing. Bruce on another. In a team that had Russell Ebert, Tim Evans, Darrell Cahill, Trevor Sorrell, Stephen Clifford, Greg Phillips, Kym Kinnear ... how are you not going to like playing football every week when you have those guys behind you, helping you with every step you take.
"You were in awe of those players as a fan watching Port Adelaide play. And then you are among them. You never forget that feeling of being a team-mate to those players."
You also cannot forget another side to the past from Agius' time in league football. Sir Doug Nicholls Round, the annual celebration of First Nations culture in Australian football, reminds us all that the path Ross Agius and other First Nations players took to live their dreams was not always joyful.
Agius heard the remarks directed at him and other First Nations players of his era in the SANFL.
"Yes, we copped it. I did not take it as an insult but - in a way - a mark of frustration from footballers who were losing the (football) battle. You are better than them on the day and they say things out of frustration. You should get on with beating them even more at the footy. I reacted once. I copped one game at the tribunal. But I still say the remarks come from frustration at being beaten by a better player.
"I still get together with (fellow First Nations SANFL stars) Michael Graham, Wilbur Wilson, Kevin Hill, Eddie Fry ... we know what we copped in those years. We also know how good Aboriginal players are in this game. We've wondered, what if ... what if we had an All-Stars Aboriginal team in the AFL. You don't think we would have won a flag by now?"
Agius kicked three goals in the 1980 SANFL grand final triumph against Norwood while Yartapuulti was stitching together three consecutive flags under Cahill. The cheering ended in 1985.
"By 1984 I was seeing the end - I had injured a knee, it was not coming good and I was losing confidence," Agius recalls. "I couldn't make it back. But I was so proud of what we had achieved in my time at the football club - and of my part in it.
"We played tough, hard footy. We were full-on in moving the ball forwards - look at how that played out in 1980 when we were winning by an average margin of 50 points. Quick, non-stop footy.
"I went back to Rosewater as captain-coach for two years," adds Agius who has the club's best-player medal during the Adelaide Footy League's Indigenous round named in his honour.
"I also wanted to do other things in life. From working for 14 years with the Port Adelaide council - along with Russell Johnston, 'Bomber' Clifford, Martin Leslie - I went to the Cheltenham racecourse for another 14 years and would have been with the SA Jockey Club had Victoria Park been redeveloped as a multi-code race track.
"I went to the mines ... 11 years there. Now I am doing some civil work with Intract at McMahon Services. And I still like to keep fit by jogging and swimming. I get back to my start with a shack near Wallaroo."
There also is more time to engage with his former team-mates at Yartapuulti.
"Today," says Agius, "I like going to the footy. I enjoy being with the past players. It is my club and I am proud to have played my part at the Port Adelaide Football Club. I am proud to have been part of a team that traditionally played hard, tough football. I am proud we have made our mark in the AFL - and I am so pleased we are once again One Club. We must always respect where we came from and what we achieved before we went to the AFL."
Those achievements include all that Agius did to inspire many other First Nations men and women to be successful in football - and life.
