Port Adelaide's champion players from before the war started to retire and the club's performance declined. It won only a single premiership between 1922 and 1935. By the mid 1930s, Port Adelaide's form began to recover. It suffered two narrow grand final losses in 1934 and 1935, before winning consecutive premierships the following two years. During 1939, Bob Quinn, in his third year as a player for the club, coached the team to a Grand Final win over West Torrens. Many Port Adelaide players also enlisted for military service during this time. The club suffered six player casualties during the war. Just as had happened in 1914, the league was hit hard by player losses in World War II. Due to a lack of able men, the league's eight teams were reduced to four and Port Adelaide temporarily merged with nearby West Torrens from 1942 to 1944. The joint club played in all three Grand Finals during this period, winning the 1942 instalment, but losing the 1943 and 1944 editions to the Norwood-North Adelaide combination. While normal competition resumed in 1945, Port Adelaide was unable to regain its pre-war success in the rest of the decade. In particular, it lost the 1945 SANFL Grand Final after a remarkable comeback from West Torrens. The 'All Australian', predecessor to the modern 'All-Australian' team, was created by Sporting Life magazine in 1947, with Bob Quinn being named in the side as captain. 1950–1973: Fos Williams era and Jack Oatey rivalry During the 1950s, Port Adelaide reestablished itself as a perennial contender, winning seven premierships. At the end of the 1949, having missed two finals series in a row, the Port Adelaide Football Club's committee sought out a coach that could win the club its next premiership. Following a failed attempt to obtain Jim Deane, the decision was made to appoint Fos Williams, a rover from West Adelaide. In his second season as player-coach in 1951, Williams led the club to their first standalone premiership in 12 seasons, defeating North Adelaide by 11 points. In the 1951 post-season, Port Adelaide lost an exhibition match to VFL premiers . In the mid-1950s, Port Adelaide and Melbourne, often the premiers of South Australian and Victorian leagues respectively, played exhibition matches at Norwood Oval. The most notable game was the 1955 match, which had an estimated crowd of 23,000. The match went down to the last 15