Ovens and Murray legend Robbie Walker says premierships become more special the older you get. For all his individual laurels, Wangaratta Rovers legend Robbie Walker says nothing beats team success even when you're not best afield on Grand Final day!
One of the icons of Ovens and Murray football, the lead member in a team which in the early ‘90s won 36 games on end becoming known as the Invincibles, Walker won 12 club and five competition best and fairests during his fabulous 300-game, four premiership career.
Just about his most cherished game, however, wasn't one in which he had 35 possessions or kicked six of the best from centre half-forward but rather the '94 Grand Final when Rovers went back-to-back against Wodonga under the never-so-die Laurie Burt.
"I wasn't too dominant that day at all, " said Walker.
"But as you get older and more mature, it was a flag all of us really savoured.
"In '94 I didn't know it was going to be the last one. We'd won all these games in a row and were favorites, but the same sort of thing happened in '92 and we missed out altogether (on playing in a Grand Final). Anything can happen in finals. That's the beauty of it. The teams which win when it counts truly deserve it."
Walker says much of the aura surrounding Wang Rovers in the late ‘80s and early '90s was to do with Burt, who led a boilover Grand Final victory against Lavington in 1988 in only his second year out of the VFA.
Coming from Coburg where most of the locals didn't even know where the local football club was, Burt says it was an extraordinary feeling to walk down the main streets of Wangaratta early on a Saturday match day and have to field sets of questions about how the team was going and "will we win today?"
"It was one of the secrets of our success outside a playing list with so many rock-solid champion people involved," he said. "The whole community would get behind us. You couldn't help but be lifted by their passion."
Walker said Burt was always coy about his age but remained a vibrant onfield force right into his last playing year of 1991 before becoming the club's non-playing coach.
"Laurie was fabulous for our club and the whole town. He was always reinforcing the team aspects, the guys who were injured or others who had missed out, the supporters who'd backed us all year and the whole community which was behind us."
Burt's success rate as a senior coach at Rovers was almost 75 per cent, testimony to his man management skills and match day competitiveness.
His team was also as skilled as any going around with players like Mick Caruso, Tony Pasquali, Walker, the Wilson brothers and Peter Tossol leading the way.
"They were dedicated to the team, the town and each other," said Burt. "That gives you a wonderful head start."
Fitness fanatic Walker had played in an Under 19s premiership at North Melbourne in 1987 before returning home in 1988 and being part of the Rovers' unit which shocked Lavington for the '88 flag.
"When you have success when you're young, you can take it for granted," Walker said.
‘That's what made the back to back flags and especially '94 so special for us.
"You're older and realize that Grand Finals don't come around every day. You take it in more."
Walker's last tilt at a flag was under Pasquali in 2002 when he said Rovers "was the fifth best team in it", yet made it through to a Grand Final, only to be beaten by a super-charged North Albury, having clawed to within a point of the lead at three quarter time.
"That was to be the last Grand Final for me," he said.
"We would have loved to have won it."
Walker's four flags at Rovers were in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1994.
If you know of anyone who has won more than Robbie's 12 b & f's at major League level, please let us know!
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By Ken Piesse
Article first appeared www.vcfl.com.au September 1st, 2010