By Tony De Bolfo
Denis Collins, the 30-game wingman with Carlton in two seasons through 1978 and ’79, has died suddenly of a heart attack in the Western Australian town of Hyden.
He was 58.
The son of former Fitzroy and Essendon premiership player Jack Collins, and brother to Footscray’s one-game player Daryl, Denis was a born and bred Braybrook boy and a contemporary of Doug Hawkins.
Collins represented Footscray in 100 senior matches over six seasons before crossing town to Princes Park. He was 24 years and 333 days old when he first turned out for the Blues in the No.1 guernsey, against Melbourne in the third round of ’78 at Princes Park.
Carlton won.
Collins, who inherited the nickname “Scruffy” due to the full beard he sported when he played, is best remembered as a strong, aggressive footballer blessed with exceptional pace and evasive skills.
That his old team should meet St Kilda in the final round of the home and away season this Saturday night is somewhat ironic, for its was in the final round match of 1978 between the two teams that Collins found himself face-up on the Moorabbin following a confrontation with the Saints’ volatile footballer Robert “Mad Dog”Muir.
That clip found its way to the Seven Network’s well-worn “Sensational Seventies” package and still gets a run from time to time.
Following the tete a tete with Muir, Collins took to the field for what was only his second career final when Carlton met Geelong in an eliminator at the MCG, and he contributed significantly to the team’s 33-point triumph.
At the conclusion of his time at Carlton, in what was a premiership season under Alex Jesaulenko in 1979, Collins pursued his career with Richmond. There he turned out for a further 17 matches, and was named as an emergency for the 1980 Grand Final.
In the early 1980s, after a brief run with WAFL club East Perth, Collins made his way to Hyden, about 330 kilometres east of Perth in the Western Australian wheatbelt. He chased the leather for the local football club and together with his future wife Sheenagh managed the local Wave Rock Hotel Motel near the famous geological formation.
It was at Hyden that Carlton Assistant Coach Mark Riley forged a friendship with the Collins’ who became godparents to his daughter.
“I’d never been outside the city and they sent me out there with teaching, and they really looked after me. He and I became great mates,” Riley said.
“He was a very giving person, very community-driven and incredibly generous . . . any profits that he and Sheenagh made were pumped back into the town, and If you can imagine where he lived – this tiny little town in the middle of an arid wheatbelt where it rains once every ten years and suffers drought the other nine.
“I remember seeing him at a recent Spirit of Carlton day. I left him at the bar with ‘Sellers’ (Mark Maclure), Jimmy Buckley and those sort of blokes, and it would have been the first time in 20 or 30 years that he’d had the chance to catch up with them because he’d put so much time and energy into his work.”
Maclure, Carlton’s 243-game triple premiership player who last saw Collins in Port Douglas, remembered his old teammate as tearaway footballer who’d fared well against the Blues in earlier contests.
“They got him from Footscray because he was speedy and quick, and he always gave us a lot of trouble when we played them,” Maclure said.
“I’m not quite sure why he missed out in ’79, but he fitted into the club quite well. He was a very affable sort of bloke and quite a nice guy.”
A family friend Bernie Mouritz, said from Perth yesterday that the entire Hyden community was shocked and deeply saddened with the loss of one of its own.
“Denis was here only ten days ago having a kick of the footy with my young bloke,” Mouritz said. “I spoke to him again the other day, he’d been to the doctor about his high blood pressure, but he’d had tests and was on medication and everybody thought ‘Okay, he’s got it under control’”. He was feeling good about life and was looking forward to the coming season .It was all coming together, then this. We are all Gutted
Mouritz said that Collins complained to his wife early yesterday that he was feeling unwell and promptly checked himself in to the local Silver Chain Medical Centre. The flying doctor was called, arrived and every care was available and taken. But Collins suffered a massive heart attack while being stabilized and could not be revived.
“Denis was a good man , he was community-spirited and didn’t ever ask you to do anything he wasn’t able to do himself on or off the footy or cricket field. Anybody who has a hard word to say about him is probably jealous because he could actually do it,” Mouritz said.
“He leaves a massive void, a huge hole in the community. Ironically he’d just helped raise the funds, he built the infrastructure and had automated the lighting system at The Hyden airstrip he had also helped build. So that the flying doctor could arrive at any time at all.
Collins is survived by his loving wife Sheenagh and his many friends he had made over his time in Hyden . Funeral arrangements are yet to be determined.
It was a real pleasure to see so many happy faces and the camaraderie amongst old friends. The schedule for the night was delayed somewhat because everyone was enjoying the chance to catch up and chat.
