Allen John Jakovich () (born 21 March 1968) is a retired
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
player. Jakovich was a prolific
full forward
Full-forward is a position in Australian rules football and Gaelic football with a key focus on kicking goals.
The Coleman Medal is awarded to the player, often a full-forward, who has kicked the most goals in an Australian Football League seaso ...
and is notable for kicking 208 goals in his 54
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...
matches, an average of 3.85 per game, for
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and
Footscray. He and his younger brother,
Glen Jakovich
Glen Darren Jakovich (born 24 March 1973) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the West Coast Eagles in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Jakovich was recruited from South Fremantle in the West Australian Football League ...
, both began their AFL careers in the
1990 AFL Draft
The 1990 AFL draft was the 5th annual draft of Australian rules footballers to the 14 clubs in the Australian Football League. It consisted of the national draft held at the end of the 1990 season, the pre-season draft held before the 1991 AFL ...
.
Jakovich grew up in Western Australia and has also played football with clubs in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Victoria.
He is of Croatian descent.
Early career
Allen Jakovich was the second of three sons for Darko and Mary Jakovich.
Allen represented Western Australia in 1983 for the Secondary Schools U15 competition. He played alongside Chris Lewis, Andrew McGovern, Paul Peos and Chris Waterman who would also go on to play AFL.
Allen also played in the 1985 Teal Cup football team for Western Australia. Allen played alongside future West Coast Eagles players Chris Lewis, Paul Peos, Guy McKenna, Chris Waterman, Scott Watters, Peter Sumich and John Worsfold in what was Western Australia's first TEAL cup win. Although playing well in Western Australia's first two games against Queensland and NSW, Allen Jakovich only scored a single goal in the final against Victoria and was replaced halfway through the 3rd quarter.
Allen followed his older brother Garry (3 Senior Games in 1984)
[Team all players](_blank)
and began his senior career with
South Fremantle in the
West Australian Football League
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...
. Over the 1985 and 1986 seasons, Allen played 7 games in the seniors and kicked 22 Goals at an average of 3.14 goals per game. As of 2015 this was the 15th best goals per game average for the club.
Allen kicked 62 goals for the Colts 1984 season and was an important part of the Bulldogs premiership victory. In Round4 of the 1985 Season for the Colts, Allen kicked 10 goals against Subiaco.
Jakovich left the club in 1987.
He then played in towns in outback Western Australia such as Port Headland and Kalgoorlie.
It was while playing at Port Hedland that Allen Jakovich met Brian Hood who was the Coach of the NTFL team
Southern Districts. Brian convinced Allen to join
Southern Districts for the 1988/1989 season.
NTFL career
He then played in the
Northern Territory Football League
The Northern Territory Football League (NTFL) is an Australian rules football semi-professional league operating in Darwin in the Northern Territory.
The league is one of few (and the highest level) Australian Rules competitions played during ...
, including the 1988/89 season in which he kicked 104 goals for
Southern Districts.
SANFL career
Jakovich later moved to South Australia and played in the
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport.
Originally formed as the ...
(SANFL). In the 1990 season, he kicked 101 goals for
Woodville. It was this performance that drew the attention of
Melbourne Football Club
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...
talent scouts.
AFL career
1991 Season
He debuted in the seniors in round 1 against the
West Coast Eagles
The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football ...
at
Subiaco but was quickly dropped for the following week. Jakovich played in the Melbourne reserves and dominated the reserves competition in the first half of the 1991 season.
In the second half, though, he burst out convincingly and big hauls came on an almost weekly basis for the rest of the season making a big impression in the league with his confident playing style. A high point was a near single handed defeat of North Melbourne where he kicked 11 goals (including a miraculous
scissor kick out of mid-air from twenty metres out, a certain goal of the year candidate), 8 behinds and one out on the full. This effort also earned Jakovich the distinction of being the fastest player to score his first fifty goals, taking only nine games to do so.
[Goalkicking Milestones](_blank)
/ref> He finished with 71 goals for his debut season; becoming one of a handful of players in VFL/AFL
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
history to kick 50 goals in both the senior competition and now defunct 'reserves' league within the same season.
1992 Season
He kicked his 100th career goal in his 21st game, equalling the record held by John Coleman.
1993 Season
He kissed his brother Glen during a match between Melbourne and the West Coast Eagles at the MCG.
1994 Season
Over the past three years at Melbourne he balanced some mercurial performances with fitness problems and indifferent form. He was let go at the start of 1995, due to a persistent back injury.
1995 Season
He spent the year out of the game recovering from a back injury before being drafted by the Footscray Football Club
The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition.
Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the ...
.
1996 Season
An ill-fated comeback that lasted barely half a season.
In his AFL career, he kicked 208 goals and 173 behinds.
Statistics
:
, - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
, style="text-align:center;",
, 13 , , 14 , , 71 , , 57 , , 177 , , 10 , , 187 , , 92 , , 3 , , 5.1 , , 4.1 , , 12.6 , , 0.7 , , 13.4 , , 6.6 , , 0.2 , , 10
, -
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
, style="text-align:center;",
, 13 , , 11 , , 40 , , 37 , , 115 , , 9 , , 124 , , 66 , , 1 , , 3.6 , , 3.4 , , 10.5 , , 0.8 , , 11.3 , , 6.0 , , 0.1 , , 1
, - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1993
, style="text-align:center;",
, 13 , , 9 , , 39 , , 34 , , 93 , , 18, , 111 , , 57 , , 3 , , 4.3 , , 3.8 , , 10.3 , , 2.0 , , 12.3 , , 6.3 , , 0.3 , , 3
, -
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
, style="text-align:center;",
, 13 , , 13 , , 51 , , 31 , , 123 , , 17 , , 140 , , 82 , , 5 , , 3.9 , , 2.4 , , 9.5 , , 1.3 , , 10.8 , , 6.3 , , 0.4 , , 1
, - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1996
, style="text-align:center;",
, 13 , , 7 , , 7 , , 14 , , 29 , , 4 , , 33 , , 16 , , 0 , , 1.0 , , 2.0 , , 4.1 , , 0.6 , , 4.7 , , 2.3 , , 0.0 , , 0
, - class="sortbottom"
! colspan=3, Career
! 54
! 208
! 173
! 537
! 58
! 595
! 313
! 12
! 3.9
! 3.2
! 9.9
! 1.1
! 11.0
! 5.8
! 0.2
! 15
Post football career
He has largely been out of the public eye since the late 1990s, except for a one-off appearance on '' The Footy Show''.Footy Show kicks 250
/ref>
and in a wide-ranging interview on th
Demonland podcast
in 2017 and also two appearances on The Front Bar
''The Front Bar'' (formerly ''Friday Front Bar'') is an Australian Football League-based talk show that airs on the Seven Network. The show is hosted by journalist Andy Maher and comedians Mick Molloy and Sam Pang.
Hosts
* Regular
** Andy ...
in 2018.
References
External links
*
Demon Wiki profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jakovich, Allen
1968 births
Living people
Western Bulldogs players
Melbourne Football Club players
South Fremantle Football Club players
Woodville Football Club players
Southern Districts Football Club players
Australian people of Croatian descent
Australian rules footballers from Western Australia
Western Australian State of Origin players