The game of football has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, but it’s comforting to know some things will always stay the same.

Almost half a century has passed since Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale booted five goals in the Saints’ 1966 Grand Final win; but the former St Kilda spearhead can still recall the way September felt during his playing days.

“In September, we’d had the wet winter and it was starting to get a bit warmer,” Neale remembers.

“They were mowing the grass and you could smell it, you know? When you went to training it just used to stop you there as you were coming out on the ground and you go… ‘oh, this is a bit different’.”

“They were mowing the grass and you could smell it, you know? When you went to training it just used to stop you there as you were coming out on the ground and you go… ‘oh, this is a bit different’” – Cowboy Neale

Spring has arrived in 2013 and brought with it the distinctive feel of finals footy; the sun is out and the smell of freshly cut grass lingers in the air. In many ways, the AFL landscape is barely recognisable to the one that existed in Neale’s day, but the man they called ‘Cowboy’ thinks the elements at the heart of footy haven’t changed all that much.

“Back in our days the club would come to us and say ‘look, we’re broke’ – which they were a lot of the time – ‘we can’t afford to pay you’. But it would not have made any difference to us. We’d just play exactly the same – exactly as hard as ever,” Neale recalls.

“There might be a few nowadays who might say ‘hang on a bit, I’m only getting $200,000’… but I think the majority of the players would still be committed to the club and to the result of winning. There’s no doubt about it.”

‘Cowboy’ looks at the way current St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt plays, and feels footballers still play the game for the right reasons. The blonde, brave Saint who leaves nothing on the field is Neale’s favourite player of the modern era.

“Of all the years I’ve played – luckily I played with some great players, and I‘ve been flogged by some great players too – but I really find it difficult in my mind to see how there’s too many better players than Nick Riewoldt,” Neale says.

“I cannot believe the amount of work he does.”

In many ways, Neale was the Riewoldt of his era; a superstar St Kilda key forward, who could turn a game on its head with a clinical display of strong marking and the ability to kick a bag of goals.

Neale kicked nine goals in the last two finals of ’66 – the preliminary and Grand Final. Riewoldt kicked nine goals in the first two finals of 2009, but managed just one in the Grand Final. Neale will be forever remembered as a Premiership player, while Riewoldt – in all likelihood – sadly will not.

It would be easy to line the two players up alongside one another and label Neale’s career a huge success and Riewoldt’s something short of that. But while Neale played in St Kilda’s only premiership, the fact he also played in two losing Grand Finals is often forgotten.

When asked if the pain of losing a Grand Final is a more affecting experience than the joy of winning one, Neale answers, “I don’t think there’s any doubt.”

“In 1971 we were 20 points up at three quarter time and then got rolled by Hawthorn. And that hurt. I must say, the disappointment out of that never goes away.”

Neale also played in a losing Grand Final in his first season in 1965, but admits the significance may have been lost on him at the time.

“I’d played in Grand Finals for about nine years in a row (before playing for St Kilda) so I thought it was just normal. But then we missed out after ‘66 through to ‘71. The longer you play the game, the more you realise just how hard it is to win a Premiership.”

Though the heartache of lost Grand Finals remains after all these years, Neale can also remember Premiership glory vividly.

“The thing that really stuck with me – and I still remember it to this day – is the number of people, a lot of them were older… who were sitting there still in their seats just crying, because they’d been following St Kilda for 60 or 70 years.”

“It struck me then, how much does it mean to these people? To look at it and now, 140 years we’ve been going and we’ve still only won one.”

In those days, football wasn’t as all-encompassing as it is today – but the reactions from both players and supporters seem not to have changed at all. It’s easy to forget how different Neale’s era really was.

“When I was playing we worked five days a week and only trained Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Neale recalls.

‘Cowboy’ worked as a boot-maker before he moved to Melbourne, where he worked in sales and dispatch for Philip Morris – a cigarette company – during his playing days at St Kilda.

The players’ outside commitments meant they had fewer responsibilities to their club and spent less time preparing for games. Neale understands that for current AFL players, the game is a full-time job, but can’t help but feel there are elements of “progress” that are unnecessary; the abundance of meetings, for one.

“I used to say, Robert Harvey – 21 years he’s been playing footy. What the hell could he possibly learn in the bloody meeting? But that’s the game nowadays and that’s an accepted part of it.”

Neale also feels it’s a shame that old-fashioned one-on-one battles between key position players rarely exist in the modern era.

“People went to a game knowing they’d see the centre-half back play on the centre-half forward, and that’d be a contest but now that’s something that changes every minute and a half.”

The St Kilda great also laments the way key forwards use their bodies these days – “fellas now get the front spot but they’ve just got no idea” – and can’t believe how significant the skill of handballing has become.

“I know I’m old-fashioned and all that, but I just cannot believe the number of handballs we have today,” he says.

“I looked at the stats the other day for the Grand Final in ’66 when we won it and I think we had a total of 31 handballs. They have a minimum of about 250 now.”

Though Neale admits he misses certain elements of the game, there are other ways in which he concedes football has improved markedly.

“The work-rate now, and the fitness, is just superb. That would be the thing that would make it hard for the majority of blokes in my day”, he says – before adding players such as Darrel Baldock, Ian Stewart, Ted Whitten and Bobby Skilton could play the modern game “without any problems at all.”

Neale sees some similarities between himself and Nick Riewoldt, but admits the current Saint might have his measure.

“My game was very similar to what Rooey’s is, but he runs about 23 kilometres a game,” he says with a laugh.

“I ran about 23 kilometres in my 13 years.”