Who will make the Granny ?

[Pies4shaw]

North have already made history by making a preliminary final from 8th, and will be in even deeper uncharted waters if they win tonight. But it'll also bring about another interesting anomaly - only the second time ever that the top two teams have both missed the grand final (the other was 1980; let us not discuss that any further).

The reason both missed the 1980 Grand Final was, of course, the Mighty Magpies.

The Blooz finished top, beating us twice during the home and away season. We pumped them with a fifty-point win in the finals. Rene Kink was BOG, with 27 disposals, 11 marks and 3 goals. Ricky Braham kicked 4 goals, as did Ian Low.

The Pussies finished second. The 'Pies and they each had one win against the other during the season. The 'Pies got home in one of the great prelims, with Shaw, Davis and Wearmouth each kicking 3.

That was a strange season. I recall going to watch Geelong and Richmond play during the home and away at the MCG because they were clearly the best two teams and, for the life of me, I don't understand how the Blooz finished on top. Just as well we knocked them off, though, or we might not all now be so concerned about the possibility of Hawthorn equalling our 4-peat (remembering, with a degree of disgust, that the Blooz won in 1979, 1981 and 1982).

That old final 5 system made it very difficult for any team to be beaten once they won the second semi-final. In those days (as with the old final four), the second semi win was a direct passage to the Grand Final and a week's rest, since there was only one preliminary final. Although, of course, it was a brilliant effort for Richmond to win from 4th in 1969 under the final 4 system, at least in those days there was only one final each weekend, so the winner of the first semi-final (3 v 4) got a week's rest as 1 v 2 battled out and then the loser played the winner of 3 v 4 in the prelim.

Unfortunately for Collingwood, making the Grand Final from fifth meant winning 3 hard matches and then backing up for a Grand Final against a team coming off a week's rest. It was just too much. My Grandmother and I left that match early on (I think before quarter-time) after watching Ricky Barham (perhaps the fastest Collingwood player who ever pulled on boots) get run down from behind by David Cloke (perhaps the slowest Richmond player who ever pulled on boots) - it was painfully obvious that Collingwood had shot their bolt and could not compete physically that day.

[Pies4shaw]

I might add that there was a message in the 1980 season about the damage that can be done in finals by great players with exceptional longevity (cf Hodge and Mitchell). Kevin Bartlett was an extraordinary footballer. He started his career as a first rover (typically the most important midfielder of the day) and spanned his club's greatest era - he started in 1965 and finished in 1983. Along the way, the VFL had to change the free-kick rules - he was so good at bouncing the ball in front of himself just before he was tackled that he could draw free kicks almost at will. Late in his career, he re-invented himself as a forward-pocket goal-kicking second-rover. In that capacity, he began the 1980 finals campaign aged 33 and a half and kicked 6 goals, 8 goals and 7 goals in his three finals (and 84 goals for the season).

Typically, if you look closely enough at the supposedly "great" coaches of various eras, you will find that there were a handful of quite exceptional players who made them. Bartlett would never, of course, say so, but he was one of the handful who made Hafey. He and Francis Burke (who started off as a star wingman and ended as a star defender) started that era as teenagers and ended it with 400 and 300 games, respectively. The other out and star in all but the last of those premiership teams was Royce Hart who - but for persistent knee injuries that finished his career by 1977 (after he'd played in 4 premierships) might have been remembered as the greatest CHF of all-time.

[sixpoints]

Don't also forget that there is too a message from 1980 on how internal instability and division can damage a club.
Carlton came off their narrow flag win over us in 1979 to a boardroom fiasco that played out the whole summer. There was a move to 'modernise' the club with a push from the backers of businessman Ian Rice to become president. The incumbent president George Harris had been in charge for 4 premierships, but to many his style (my way of the highway) had run its race.
So the numbers prevail and the presidency of Harris is over only weeks after the flag.
Harris, given his style, goes public savaging the plotters. He brings Carlton's premiership hero captain-coach along with him in Alex Jesaulenko. Jezza says, I'm loyal - if Harris goes so do I. So weeks after a flag, Carlton is split in two & unbelievably the premiership coach walks out to St Kilda.
Carlton have no one to coach them, so they appoint the recently retired player in Peter (Percy) Jones.
So the club with probably the best playing list in the league has without doubt the worst coach in the league. They finish second on the ladder behind Geelong and are badly beaten in both their finals (to Richmond when coach Percy Jones gets involved in a fist fight at quarter time out on the ground) and the following week we thrash them and put them out.
The wash up - Percy Jones is immediately dispatched and replaced by an outsider in David Parkin and Carlton duly win the next two flags.
Without their internal schism of 1980...we will never know. But their record of 1979 flag, 1980 cluster f**k, 1981 flag, 1982 flag is compelling. It speaks volumes for the importance of stability, single mindedness and unity in a footy club. Distractions and infighting will bring you undone.

[Pies4shaw]

Well stated, sixpoints. You've reminded me that the Blooz actually finished second (by percentage) to Geelong. Percy wasn't the greatest of coaches - but he seems to have had a bus that could (nearly) drive itself.

Interestingly, the Blooz and Geelong both went out in straight sets, each on a loss to Richmond followed by a loss to Collingwood.