Tigerland president-elect John O’Rourke’s Richmond roots run deep. His uncle, Jack, had a short, injury-interrupted, but impressive playing career with the Tigers seven decades ago. Tony Greenberg takes up the story . . .
Jack O’Rourke was one of Richmond’s most exciting players from the immediate post-war era.
Although O’Rourke played only 44 games for the Tigers from 1949-53, he left an indelible mark at Punt Road in that relatively brief time.
Originally recruited from the local Richmond area, O’Rourke spent a couple of years in the Tigers’ reserve-grade side, before moving to country club South Warrnambool in 1948.
He subsequently rejoined Richmond in 1949 and made his senior league debut against Hawthorn in Round 2 that season.
An exciting, high-flying full-forward, O’Rourke went on to kick 134 goals in his 44-game career at Tigerland, winning the Club’s leading goalkicker award twice – in 1951 with 58 goals and 1952 with 43 goals.
His highest individual goal tally with the Tigers was seven, which he booted against St Kilda in 1950.
O’Rourke made a fantastic, flying start to the 1951 season, booting 34 goals in the opening six home-and-away rounds that year.
Here is his game-by-game goals tally in those six rounds . . .
Round 1 v Footscray, Punt Road – five goals.
Round 2 v South Melbourne, Lake Oval – six goals.
Round 3 v Carlton, Princes Park – six goals.
Round 4 v Hawthorn, Punt Road – five goals.
Round 5 v Collingwood, Punt Road – five goals.
Round 6 v St Kilda, Junction Oval – seven goals.
O’Rourke thrilled the Yellow and Black faithful with his aerial exploits and one of his marks featured in a book displaying photographs of the 100 greatest marks of all time.
But as Rhett Bartlett revealed in his book “The Tigers: A Century of League Football”, that much-publicised spectacular mark over Collingwood’s Jack Hamilton at Punt Road in Round 5 of the 1951 season, was actually not allowed.
Umpire Bill Barbour deemed that O’Rourke had infringed against Hamilton in the process of taking the mark, and subsequently awarded a free kick against him.
O’Rourke ran into Barbour at the train station after the game and the umpire told him he’d made a mistake in not awarding the mark.
“Jack was sky high. He knocked Jack Hamilton flying but put his hands on his shoulder and pressed himself up,” Barbour said.
“I took it off him; there was hell of a screaming. It was in the rules in those days. In reality, it would have been better to turn a blind eye to it,” he admitted.
