Collingwood officials must have been excited when Mark Slater landed at the club as a 16-year-old in 1968. Because everything about his junior career screamed potential senior star.

He was an outstanding junior footballer who had enjoyed the unusual distinction of representing Victoria in two successive Schoolboys’ Carnivals, the first held in Canberra in 1965 and the second in Adelaide in 1966. He came to notice at the second of those when he kicked 10 goals against Queensland, and 24 in total for the carnival. This was a kid who knew where the goals were.

He played local footy with Bundoora, and it was from there that the Magpies recruited him to play with the under-19s in 1968. He played 12 games that year and showed he had lost none of his eye for goal with the step-up in class, topping the team’s goalkicking despite not playing the full year. In 1969 he flitted between the thirds and reserves, and also managed his senior debut, against Geelong at Victoria Park – aged just 17. He started on the bench and got a run late in the game.

A talented full-forward at junior level, Mark found himself playing more as a second or third forward at senior level - there was also the small fact that Peter McKenna was in the goalsquare - but still had the ability to regularly deliver big hauls. He twice kicked six in the under-19s, twice kicked five in the reserves and in 1970 enjoyed a day out against Carlton reserves, kicking seven goals.

But even that wasn’t enough to earn a recall into the strong Magpie teams of that year: he’d played in the opening game of the season – again from the bench, where he spent the entire afternoon – but that would be the last senior action he would see.

He was released just before the start of the 1971 season and then enjoyed a fine career with both Preston and Coburg in the VFA, including playing in a Division 2 Premiership with the Lions. He later returned to Bundoora and captain-coached them the 1981 Diamond Valley League Division 2 premiership in 1981. He also won the competition best-and-fairest that year.

It's hard to believe that a player of such promise and potent goalkicking ability was let go before he'd turned 20, and with less than 30 minutes of exposed form at senior level. Surely there was more to be written in the Mark Slater story? Unfortunately we never got to find out.

- Michael Roberts