LEGEND – Player Inductee
Cooee/Wynyard/Hawthorn/Burnie Hawks, Half Back/Wing, 1979-2005
> 116 games, 62 goals, Hawthorn, 1980-86
> Norm Smith Medal for best player in VFL grand final, 1983
> Represented Tasmania ten times, 1979-88
> Wynyard premiership, 1979
> Hawthorn premiership, 1983 and reserves premiership, 1985
> Captain, 42 games, Burnie Hawks (TFL statewide), 1987-89
> Coached Burnie Hawks, 1989
> Coached Wynyard (NTFL), 1991-92
> President of Wynyard FC during the mid-2000s.
> Credited with 300 senior games
A hard running player, Colin Robertson was a versatile footballer who could play across half back, on wing or on the ball. He was recruited to Hawthorn from the Wynyard Football Club in 1980 and became a key part of the club’s dominance during the 1980s.
Best remembered for the Norm Smith Medal he won during Hawthorn’s 1983 VFL grand final demolition of Essendon, Robertson was a dashing player in both Victoria and Tasmania. In the 1983 grand final his brief was to curb the effectiveness of key Bomber on-baller Tim Watson, a task he performed in exemplary fashion, whilst still managing to exert a significant impact offensively.
Robertson joined Hawthorn from Wynyard in 1980 after the Hawks won a six-club chase to procure him. He quickly settled in at Glenferrie, becoming a significant contributor to the hard running style of football that was being developed by coach Allan Jeans, and which would ultimately enable the Hawks to establish one of the most awesome and enduring football dynasties of all time.
Such high standards made competition for senior places at Hawthorn probably stiffer than it had been at any other VFL club up to that point, and after the 1984 grand final—in which he performed serviceably to contribute two goals to Hawthorn’s losing tally of 12.9—Robertson found it increasingly difficult to perform consistently at the required level. Admittedly, grand final day 1985 did see him earn a second premiership medallion in a side including players like Peter Knights and Rodney Eade, but this was just a reserves flag which, in the context of the Hawthorn senior side’s 78-point capitulation to Essendon later the same day, was somewhat hollow.
Colin Robertson finished his senior football career by captaining the Burnie Hawks during that club’s first three seasons in the TFL statewide competition. Robertson has multiple individual player honours and has been recognized by Wynyard in their All Star Team. A nominee for the Tasmanian Team of the Century, he was pipped for a position by two other Hawthorn wingmen, Rodney Eade and Darrin Pritchard. Nonetheless he was an early inclusion in the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame.
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