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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
player. Jakovich was a prolific
full forward and is notable for kicking 208 goals in his 54
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
matches, an average of 3.85 per game, for
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
and
Footscray. He and his younger brother,
Glen Jakovich, both began their AFL careers in the
1990 AFL draft.
Jakovich grew up in Western Australia and played football with clubs in Western Australia, 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 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 (4 Senior Games in 1984)
and began his senior career with
South Fremantle in the
West Australian Football League. 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 2025 this was the 9th best goals per game average for the club. Noting that
Mark Jackson is in 10th place with 100 goals from 32 games (3.13 goals per game). Also noting that no player since Allen Jakovich played has had more goals per game for the club.
Allen kicked 62 goals for the Colts 1984 season and was an important part of the Bulldogs premiership victory. In Round 4 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 Hedland 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, 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 (SANFL) playing for
Woodville. In the 1989 season he kicked 85 goals. In the 1990 season he kicked 101 goals. It was this performance that drew the attention of
Melbourne Football Club
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier comp ...
talent scouts.
AFL career
1991 Season
He debuted in the seniors in round 1 against the
West Coast Eagles 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 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.
Statistics
:
, - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1991
It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...
, 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
1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General.
* January 6
** The Republ ...
, 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
The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as:
* International Year for the World's Indigenous People
The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...
, 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
The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations.
In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...
, 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 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