Happy 60th birthday to Phil Maylin.
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From the Blueseum
Career : 1980 – 1984
Debut : Round 1, 1980 vs Collingwood, aged 23 years, 343 days
Carlton Player No. 881
Games : 89
Goals : 48
Last Game : Round 22, 1984 vs South Melbourne, aged 28 years, 134 days
Guernsey No. 13
Height : 175 cm (5 ft. 9 in.)
Weight : 76 kg (12 stone)
DOB: 20 April, 1956
Premiership Player: 1981, 1982
A hard-working, tenacious utility from South Australian club Woodville, Phil ‘Shark’ Maylin was a month short of his 24th birthday when he made his debut for the Blues in 1980, and went on to be a popular member of Carlton’s 1981 and ‘82 Premiership sides. Virtually from the day of his arrival at Princes Park in the late summer of 1979, his application and work ethic demanded that a place be found for him in the reigning Premiership team.
Wearing guernsey number 13, Maylin went through a baptism of fire against Collingwood in his first senior game at Victoria Park in round one of 1980. Playing on a wing alongside Ken Sheldon and Peter Francis, Phil earned respect for his hardness at the contest, as Wayne Johnston kicked seven goals and Carlton won a torrid clash by 38 points. Former St Kilda defender Val Perovic also did well for the Blues in his first appearance for his new club, while Peter ‘Percy’ Jones made a good start to his senior coaching career.
When the home and away season concluded that year, Carlton had only Geelong perched above us on the ladder. The Blues seemed right in the hunt for another flag – before heavy defeats by Richmond and Collingwood bundled the Blues out of the finals in straight sets. Reacting swiftly, Carlton’s unhappy hierarchy promptly sacked Jones and installed former Hawthorn Premiership coach David Parkin in his place.
Meanwhile, Maylin had done everything asked of him in his debut year. He had played in 22 of Carlton’s 24 matches (including both finals) and notched 11 goals as a free-running wingman. When Parkin arrived, he and Phil found immediate rapport, and it wasn’t long before Maylin was being asked to shoulder more responsibility as a ruck-rover and occasional centreman.
Bolstered by more quality local and interstate recruits – including future champions Ken Hunter and Peter Bosustow – Carlton swept to the Premiership in 1981. Brushing aside Geelong and Collingwood in successive finals matches, the Blues claimed their thirteenth VFL flag. In those games, Maylin held his own in his first taste of the pressure-cooker tempo of finals football. Again running off a wing (alongside former Melbourne champion Greg Wells and youngster David Glascott) Phil was among the Blues’ best players in Carlton’s emphatic 40-point win over Geelong in the semi-final at Waverley Park.
Two weeks later, the same trio held sway across the centre of the MCG in a typically tough Grand Final watched by more than 112,000 spectators. The Blues – inspired by captain Mike Fitzpatrick and Norm Smith medallist Bruce Doull – over-ran Collingwood in the last quarter for a glorious 20-point victory.
One day short of one year later, the Blues made it back-to-back flags – after a torrid campaign of four sudden-death finals matches in successive weeks. Winding up the 1982 home and away rounds in third place, Carlton began their Premiership defence impressively, beating Hawthorn by ten goals in a Qualifying Final. Maylin played in the centre that day, releasing Wayne Johnston to roam across half-forward. But the plan went awry when ‘The Dominator’ was reported for striking, and suspended for two weeks.
To compound the disappointment, Richmond then comfortably beat the Blues by 23 points in the Second Semi-Final. Maylin supported Fitzpatrick in the ruck on that occasion and both battled hard, but the Tigers’ dominant first-quarter established a lead that Carlton couldn’t overhaul. That defeat forced the Blues into a Preliminary Final rematch with Hawthorn. Maylin returned to the centre against the Hawks, with Glascott and Frank Marchesani on the wings. All three played their part in an emphatic 31-point victory that set up another Carlton-Richmond Grand Final.
Wayne Johnston’s return to the Carlton line-up boosted the Blues on Grand Final eve, especially so because the star of the previous week; full-back Rod Austin, had been ruled out of the decider by a thigh injury. David Parkin recast his side, sending Bruce Doull to full-back, Jim Buckley into the centre, and Maylin back into a ruck-roving role at the feet of Warren ‘Wow’ Jones. Each of those moves clicked. The Blueboys withstood everything that a committed Tiger outfit could throw at them, steadying in the last quarter to win Carlton’s 14th Premiership by a margin of 18 points.
As has happened to so many players at every VFL/AFL club, the euphoria of double Premiership success lasted only until the following season for Phil Maylin. Injuries, and a tapering-off in consistency, restricted him to only eight senior appearances in 1983. He saddled up again in 1984, playing 11 games and booting eight goals, but by mid-season it was obvious that the blossoming potential of youngsters like Paul Meldrum, Mick Kennedy and WA recruit Wayne Blackwell was going make it increasingly difficult for Maylin to hold a place in Carlton’s senior team. He pulled on his boots for the last time as a Blue in the final round of the ’84 season, playing on a half-forward flank in Carlton’s six-goal win over South Melbourne at Princes Park.
Shortly afterwards, Phil applied for, and was granted a transfer to Footscray, where his qualities as a clubman and a mentor to the younger players was soon appreciated as much as they had been at Carlton. He played another 33 matches over two seasons for the Bulldogs, then retired from VFL football to accept an offer to captain-coach VFA club Springvale (now the Casey Scorpions). He was an immediate success with the Scorpions, taking them to the 1987 VFA Premiership with a win over Port Melbourne that is still celebrated as the defining moment in the club’s history.
In 1993, Maylin and two other former Blues; Alex Marcou and Peter McConville, formed an organization they called the VFL – Virtually Forgotten Legends. As well as being a social club for former players and officials, its aim was (and is) to raise funds for a wide variety of charitable causes. In the first five years of its existence, the VFL distributed over $200,000.
Later, Maylin returned to the Western Oval as an assistant to the Bulldogs’ senior coaches Terry Wallace and Peter Rohde, as a prelude to launching a coaching career in his own right. In 2003 he was appointed senior coach of the Eltham Football Club in the Northern (formerly Diamond Valley) Football League – a position he held for six years, before he somewhat sensationally switched to neighbouring Bundoora in 2009.
Milestones
50 Games: Round 6, 1982 Vs St Kilda
Career Highlights
1980 – 6th Best & Fairest
1980 – Best First Year Player Award
1981 – 9th Best & Fairest
1981 – Premiership Player
1982 – 2nd Best & Fairest
1982 – Premiership Player
1983 – Night Premiership Player