played opposite the champion Fitzroy fullback Vic Chanter. In a tough, rugged match, Fitzroy 13.12 (90) beat Essendon 5.8 (38). Coleman, who would finish the 1952 season with 103 goals, did not score a goal in the match; and this was the first (and the only) time that Coleman was held goalless in his entire 98-game career. He had less than half a dozen kicks for the entire match—despite being moved to center half-forward for a while during the second quarter—and was only able to score two behinds, one of which was effected with the last scoring kick of the match. Coleman's injury After six successive years in the finals, Essendon dropped down the ladder as an era ended. Coleman continued to be the best forward in the game, winning the VFL goalkicking by scoring 103 goals in 1952 and 97 in 1953. In the seventh game of the 1954 season, he kicked his best-ever tally of 14 goals against Fitzroy. But at Windy Hill a week later, Coleman fell heavily and dislocated his knee in what proved to be his last game. His attempts to return drew many headlines over the next two years, but, despite surgery, he was forced to concede defeat in the lead-up to the 1956 season. There were revelations in early 1958 that Coleman's knee was sufficiently repaired to play on and his true reasons for not playing were unrelated to his knee. Coleman kicked 537 goals in just 98 appearances, at an average of 5.48 goals per game. At the time of his retirement, it was the highest goals-per-game average by any player, exceeding the next-best total of Bob Pratt (4.31 goals per game) by more than a goal. Coleman's feats were even more impressive by virtue of the fact that he achieved them at a time when the rules of the game were less favourable to full-forwards: between 1925 and 1939, a free kick was always awarded against the last team to play the ball before it went out of bounds, which resulted in teams of the era adopting a direct game plan which favoured strong full-forwards, and it was an era which produced many of the league's heaviest goalscorers, including Pratt, Gordon Coventry, Bill Mohr and Ron Todd; however, Coleman played after the boundary throw-in had been re-introduced, resulting in more play along the wings and less prominence from full-forwards. As of