Lives in Cricket No 4 - Ernie Jones

There is no explanation regarding Jones’ solitary appearance in 1897. He played in a game billed as a battle of the premiers between South Adelaide and Victorian club Collingwood at Adelaide Oval on 12 June, which the visitors won by eight goals to six. Jones featured in a couple of passages of play, once marking grandly and goaling, and a second goal coming from a ball rushed forward, but that was it for the season. A few questions emerge surrounding this game. What did Jones hope to achieve by playing in this mid-season showcase event? Was he reminding the South officials of his talent and hoping to negotiate favourable financial terms to play the rest of the season? What was the club looking for in allowing him to represent them: immediate commitment? There are no answers. Neither was there an explanation for Jones’ late start to the 1898 season. He began his first game on a half-forward flank for South against Norwood on 25 June by kicking five goals and being described as ‘wonderfully agile and herculean’; played his second against Victorian team Fitzroy on 6 August; and third against Port Adelaide at the end of that month where, in a close victory, Jones’ style of play can be gauged from the following description: They [South Adelaide] placed their reliance forward principally on Jones, whose cat-like agility, immense strength and dexterous body-wriggling make him not only a dangerous opponent to approach – a rival is lucky if he escapes without a bruise of some kind when he comes in contact with ‘Jonah’ – but he is also a sure and splendid goal-kicker. When the same two sides met again in the first SAFA grand final a fortnight later, Jones was the dominant factor in South’s win, kicking five of his team’s eight goals and achieving his fourth premiership with the club. There was thus more than a stroke of irony in one line from the Observer’s report on South’s season: ‘They never chopped and changed but kept on with as nearly as possible to the same twenty.’ By the time Jones resumed in 1900 electorate football had become compulsory and he was forced to switch to the North Adelaide club in whose area he lived. Appointed captain, he played chiefly in defence, won intercolonial representation for the last time, and led his club to their first premiership with a thrilling last-quarter win over his old side. The Footballer: 1892-1907 74