HOW great is Port Adelaide's "Greatest Team"?
Two decades have passed since the Port Adelaide Football Club put the challenge to five of its heroes to select the club's greatest line-up from inception to the end of the 20th century, 1870-2000.
Of the 22 chosen by Fos Williams, Bob Quinn, Dave Boyd, Russell Ebert and Greg Phillips, six from the greatest line-up are honoured in the national Hall of Fame ... and there are strong cases to be made for others.
To ease the memory, here is the Greatest Team:
F: Scott Hodges, Tim Evans, Bob Quinn
HF: Dave Boyd, Leslie Dayman, Harold Oliver
C: Craig Bradley, Russell Ebert, John Cahill
HB: Neville Hayes, Greg Phillips, Geof Motley
B: Dick Russell, John Abley, Ted Whelan
1R: Russell Johnston, Allan Reval, Fos Williams
Interchange: Harry Phillips, Jeff Potter, Peter Woite, Lloyd Zucker
Captain-coach: Fos Williams
Each of the six in the Australian Football Hall of Fame have - as the selection in Australian football's greatest pantheon would demand - left a significant, positive mark on the game.
CRAIG BRADLEY: The only player with more than 500 (501) games of senior football on a resume that began at Port Adelaide - while he was also playing Sheffield Shield cricket for South Australia - and achieved extraordinary greatness at Carlton.
JOHN CAHILL: Not only one of the greatest players denied a much-deserved Magarey Medal in his record (runner-up in 1970 to the triple winner Barrie Robran), Cahill entered the national Hall of Fame for his record-equalling (with Jack Oatey) 10 SANFL league premierships as a coach.
RUSSELL EBERT: Always in that never-ending debate as to who is the greatest player in SA football history. The other two candidates - Barrie Robran and Malcolm Blight - are "Legends" in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Ebert's four Magarey Medals (1971, 1974, 1976 and 1980) and record for the most senior games at Port Adelaide (391, 1968-1985) put him in a super class of his own.
GEOF MOTLEY: In 1965, Motley - as Port Adelaide captain - won a record ninth premiership as a player. This included the Six in a Row from 1954 with the 1959 flag won with Motley as captain-coach after Fos Williams retired at the end of 1958. Motley, the 1964 Magarey Medallist, finished his 258-game career with total integrity as he was never reported.
BOB QUINN: A hero on and off the field, earning the Military Medal for his bravery and leadership on enemy lines at Tobruk in 1941. He won the Magarey Medal before enlisting for war service - and repeated on his return while carrying serious scars from his war wounds.
FOS WILLIAMS: Port Adelaide's modern patriarch - and a grand devotee to South Australian football as a State coach. His nine premierships at Port Adelaide while masterminding the club's Golden Era in the 1950s and 1960s makes Williams a legend at Alberton - and many would say well beyond the 5014 post code. Nationally, the critical criteria for "Legend" status is to “cause the game to change significantly for the better”.
Of the other 16, who would be the next inductee to the Australian Football Hall of Fame which this week opened it induction ceremony as a television event with Fox Footy on Monday? The Class of 2020 will be complete with Thursday night's final inductions.
Port Adelaide currently has 12 national Hall of Famers, the most recent being AFL premiership captain Warren Tredrea in 2014.
The full list, in the categories used by the Hall of Fame is:
Players: Craig Bradley, Nathan Buckley, Haydn Bunton senior (who played 17 league games at Port Adelaide), Russell Ebert, Andrew McLeod, Geof Motley, Bob Quinn, Warren Tredrea and Gavin Wanganeen.
Coaches: John Cahill and Fos Williams.
Administrator: Bob McLean.
The Australian Football Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 1996 to coincide with the AFL-VFL centenary season. The South Australian Football Hall of Fame began in 2002 and has 18 inductees from the Port Adelaide Greatest Team.
They are the six with national honour plus Harold Oliver, 1975 Magarey Medallist Peter Woite, Ted Whelan, "Bull" Reval, Jeff Potter, the two key defenders in the greatest line-up in Greg Phillips and John Abley, the two big goalkickers who rewrote the SANFL record books in Tim Evans and Magarey Medallist Scott Hodges, Neville "Chicken" Hayes, Leslie "Bro" Dayman and 1956 Magarey Medallist Dave Boyd.
It is an extraordinary count - 17 of Port Adelaide's greatest line-up, chosen as if it was to play (and win) on any given Saturday, is a Hall of Famer outside the club's parade of champions.
Along with these 17, Port Adelaide also has the following honoured in the SA Football Hall of Fame - Bruce Abernethy, Greg Anderson, Brian Cunningham, Chad Cornes, Josh Francou, Tim Ginever, Sampson "Shine" Hosking, Ray Huppatz, Roger James, Bob McLean, Andrew McLeod, Matthew Primus, and Mark and Stephen Williams.
In total, 31 from the Port Adelaide Football Club are honoured in the South Australian Football Hall of Fame.
Port Adelaide's Hall of Fame was launched in 1998 and has honoured 40 players, coaches, administrators and club servants who have played a major part in meeting the club's goal to win premierships, 37 of them. It also pays tribute to the men from two grand premiership eras - those who made up the Six in a Row heroes from 1954-1959 and the men who won the 1962, 1963 and 1965 premierships when Fos Williams returned as a non-playing coach and led Port Adelaide to the top of the SANFL's all-time premiership tally.
Hall of Fame status is a modern honour in Australian football.
"It is," says Geof Motley, who was inducted to the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2009, "a bit of icing on top of a long-term association with the greatest game in the world."
Port Adelaide's greatest team for this great game is a Hall of Fame unit well beyond South Australia - and many will argue there are more than six who deserve national recognition. As former AFL Commission and Hall of Fame chairman Ron Evans would say, those who deserve a pedestal in the Hall ultimately make it.
Michelangelo Rucci is a selector to the Australian and South Australian Halls of Fame.
