Players pay tribute one of the greatest WA sportsmen of all time as Austin Robertson dies age 80

Austin Robertson Jnr will be remembered as the king of Western Australia’s goalkicking royal family and a key player in a cricket revolution. Subiaco Football Club legend Robertson Jnr, who died on Tuesday age 80, topped the century mark in a season six times for a total of 1214 goals in 251 games between 1962 and 1974. Former East Perth defender Ken McAullay, told The West Australian on Wednesday Robertson Jnr was “simply the best”. “Playing on him was both exciting and a nightmare at the same time,” McAullay said. “Exciting because you would be in the play a lot and a nightmare because he would invariably kick a goal as soon as he got it. “He was a deadly kick, very quick with his lead but most importantly he timed his lead to perfection.” Such was his dominance, Robertson Jnr was held goalless only five times, twice in his finally season when he was restricted by injury. Inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2015, he topped the West Australian National Football League’s goalkicking table a record eight times. He also spent a season with South Melbourne in the VFL in 1966, when he kicked 60 goals from 18 games and topped the club’s goalkicking. Another 44 goals in 10 interstate games for WA took his tally to 1318 goals. “My method of playing on him was unorthodox. I would stand three to five metres in front of him with my back to the play. I just stared at him which gave him the s..ts,” McAullay said. “I knew that when he finally committed to the lead I could turn around and the ball would be in front of me. “Strangely enough my best game against him, was when I got the ball 18 times to his nine in one-on-one duels at Subi Oval and he kicked 8.1. And that was a bad day for him.” Subiaco FC CEO Peter Capes said he was incomparable as a goalkicking forward. “’Ocker’ was a true legend of the Subiaco Football Club and his record setting goal kicking feats will be long remembered,” Capes said. Neil Randall was a teammate in Subiaco’s drought-breaking 1973 premiership and Robertson Jnr lived with his family for a period later in the life when the goalkicking legend had fallen on hard times. “He really doesn’t get recognised enough for what he achieved. He was the best exponent of the drop punt ever. He was a cult figure here in Western Australia because of the number of goals he kicked,” Randall said. “For him to go across to play at South Melbourne for that one season and kick 60 goals in dirty conditions. That was how good a player he was. “I got named in the team of the century with him at Scotch College. His schoolboy record is unbelievable. “In that side the spine was Ashley McIntosh full back, Ross Glendinning centre half back, Rob Wiley centre, Don Langdon centre half forward, Robertson full forward and Mal Brown first ruck. They are all in good company there.” At Scotch College in 1961 he kicked 105 goals in 10 Alcock Cup games. Another former teammate Brian Sierakowski described him as “arrow straight”. “If you look at the modern footballers today and they have the greatest skills in the world and yet from 30-40m out they miss. Austin never, ever missed a goal from that distance. He was gun arrow straight.” Robertson’s father, Austin Snr, also played 154 games and kicked 250 goals with South Melbourne, before moving to WA and finishing his career with Perth and West Perth. Robertson Jnr’s biggest season haul was 157 goals in 1968 when he booted 15.11 in the final match to top Bernie Naylor’s season-best tally of 156 for a new WA record for the home and away fixtures. In an interview with The Sunday Times in 2015, Robertson corrected a long-standing myth about that final game when he had kicked 14, was locked with Naylor on 156 and his captain-coach Haydn Bunton Jnr had actually kicked backwards — common today but a no-no back in the 1960s — to help the forward break the record. “I’d like to be able to clear the record on that, because ‘Bunt’ didn’t kick backwards he kicked it across the ground,” Robertson said. “It might have looked that he turned and kicked away from goal to get it to me, but where I took the mark wasn’t backwards. “That didn’t happen, I was leading out from goal and by the time I took the mark from Bunt’s kick I was pretty square on to him. “I actually have some old black and white vision of that and no, ‘Bunt’ didn’t kick it back to me and away from our goal.” In the State game against the Big V in 1968 he booted 6.2 (matching Peter Hudson’s 5.8) as WA went down by only nine points. Robertson Jnr recalled three out-of-bounds snap shots that day as his teammates were kicking the ball backwards to find him. In football retirement Robertson Jnr was one of Kerry Packer’s key wing men who helped to secretly recruit 35 of the game’s leading players and establish World Series Cricket in 1977. He became manager to many of Australia’s leading cricketers over a period of 30 years, including Shane Warne, Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee and Graeme Wood. He is survived by three daughters Danielle, Jacqueline and Nicola.