semi-final they were not considered a serious threat. However, after overcoming Subiaco in the preliminary, Bunton developed an ingenious tactic to counter Royals' champion Polly Farmer by using both Keith Slater and Fred Castledine in the ruck contests. Though this ploy was technically illegal, it was accepted by the umpires, and Swan Districts won by 24 points for their first WAFL premiership. In the process of lifting Swan Districts from cellar-dwellers to premiers, Bunton developed a use of handball that was far ahead of its time and also discouraged the use of the erratic drop kick. The following year Bunton won the Sandover Medal for the league's "fairest and best", completing a rare father-and-son achievement. Swan Districts took their first minor premiership and won both the second semi- and grand finals against East Fremantle. Despite finishing fourth after the home-and-away rounds, Swan Districts managed to win three finals and a hat-trick of premierships in 1963; however, 1964 saw the team collapse to sixth of eight clubs with only nine wins. Bunton returned to Norwood as playing coach from 1965 until 1967, bringing his total number of games for Norwood to 97. In his first season the club played off in the finals, but they slowly declined in 1966 and 1967 finishing seventh of ten teams. Coaching career After 1967, Bunton accepted another major challenge when he accepted an appointment as playing coach of Subiaco, for whom his father had won three Sandover Medals, but which had been almost continuously a cellar-dweller for thirty years. Between 1937 and 1967, Subiaco had played in only four finals series and overall managed just 184 wins and four draws from 574 senior games for a success rate of 32.4 per cent. Subiaco, 1968 to 1972 In 1967, Subiaco had won only three of 21 games to be four games clear on the bottom, but, aided by an amazing season from full forward Austin Robertson junior, they won twelve games in 1968 to finish fourth, but did not beat top three teams Perth, East Perth and West Perth during perhaps the most uneven season in any of the VFL/AFL, SANFL or WANFL. Bunton played for two more seasons during which Subiaco again lost the first semi-final (though it was their first consecutive seasons in the finals since 1935 and 1936), but stayed on as non-playing coach during 1971 and 1972. During these two seasons, Subiaco