and did not kick a goal until the last quarter, while in the fifth round (17 May 1947), North Melbourne had been beaten by Footscray by 41 points after trailing all day. Foote placed himself into the ruck at three quarter time. He dominated the ruck, and North Melbourne were so dominant during the last quarter that the ball was at Essendon's end of the ground only once, and North scored 8.4 (52) to Essendon's zero to win the match by 8 points: North 15.12 (102) d. Essendon 14.10 (94). To put the magnitude of this astounding win into some sort of perspective, the team that North Melbourne thrashed in the last quarter of that match went on to play in the Grand Final that year, losing by a single point when Carlton's Fred Stafford goaled with 40 seconds left to play. Further, to get some perspective of Foote's astonishing performance as a ruckman on that day, at 182 cm he was dominating the three ruckmen Essendon had selected to play that day; namely, Ivan Goodingham (191 cm ), Perc Bushby (189 cm ), Bob McClure (188 cm ). This record stood unbeaten for 45 years. First Grand Final Foote was the first man to captain North Melbourne into a VFL Grand Final in 1950, having played a career-best game against Geelong in the previous week's Preliminary Final, in which he almost single-handedly converted a seven-goal (42-point) deficit into a 17-point win for North Melbourne. Essendon had already beaten North Melbourne in the Second Semi-Final 11.14 (80) to 11.11 (77) when, in driving rain, and with 30 seconds remaining, and with North Melbourne three points in front, North Melbourne's Jock McCorkell unexpectedly punched a ball that was already rolling out over the boundary line back into play just before it crossed the line, Essendon's John Coleman pounced on the ball, and passed it to Ron McEwin in the goal square. McEwin kicked the goal, and Essendon won by three points. North Melbourne's disappointment with such a narrow and unexpected loss was compounded by the fact that North Melbourne's champion full-forward Jock Spencer had earlier had what had seemed to be a legitimate spectacular aerial mark (i.e., a "speckie") disallowed in controversial circumstances. Although Essendon had only lost one match during the season, many thought that North Melbourne, having lost such a close match two weeks before, and having played so