To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1980 premiership, richmondfc.com.au is transporting Yellow and Black barrackers back in time throughout 2020 to follow the Punt Road path to that fantastic flag triumph. Today we take a look at Geoff Slattery’s report in The Age newspaper of Richmond’s Round 4 match of the 1980 season against Collingwood, which took place at Victoria on Saturday, April 19, before a crowd of 29,888.
“There is no optimist like a football optimist, and none of them come close to those at Collingwood. Amid the long faces filing past the overseeing portrait of Jock McHale in the foyer of the Collingwood social club late on Saturday afternoon was THE optimist.
“Settle down,” he said to a particularly unhappy mate contemplating carving out a wooden spoon for the Magpies. “North lost its first five when they won the flag in 1975.”
Fans seek any consolation in defeat. At the start of the year, every team is going to be premier. After a few losses they grasp straws like North’s opening of 1975. In the middle, when things are looking grim, they go to watch the Grand National to restore their life, and at the end there is always next season.
And there are none as faithful as the Collingwood crowd.
Even in 1976, when the Magpies did win the spoon, they still had the highest attendance for the home and away games. They’ve had plenty to cheer about since then, plenty to refuel the fires which have tended to wane a trifle since 1958.
But events of the past month have done more than a little to douse the 1980 enthusiasm.
On Saturday the Magpies lost their third game from four matches, not quite the same as North five years ago, but almost. And as in the game against Carlton, and, to some extent, Hawthorn, they never looked like beating the Tigers.
Watching Collingwood, you find it hard to believe they were premiership favorites a month ago. Harder still it is to realise this is much the same side beaten narrowly for the premiership last September.
They say it’s lack of pace. But they’ve been saying that for a long time. It is, but it’s more than that. Man for man Collingwood has not been a speedy side for years. Never under Tom Hafey. But Hafey’s playing method compensates for pace. If the team follows that method.
Hafey calls for long kicks, contests, success of the hands, and men at the ball. Men in waves make up for the lack of speed of any of the components. But there was none of that on Saturday. It was every man for himself.
On those terms, Richmond is too strong, and at the moment too efficient.
Hafey knows it too. “We were second to the ball all the time. That’s our problem,” he said.
If one side is content to be chasing all day, it makes it easy for the others. But that would be simplifying Richmond’s success unfairly.
The Tigers have learnt a lot from the successful methods of the past couple of years. Especially the success of Carlton.
On Saturday the Tigers had five running small men, none of them super-quick, but all willing to run, swoop, contest. Any of Kevin Bartlett, Barry Rowlings, Robert Wiley, Dale Weightman and Paul Sarah, could have worn the same guernsey on Saturday, and the short-sighted would have gone cranky trying to work out which was which.
You wonder how football evolves. Did Carlton choose its little players because Alex Jesaulenko saw them as the next step in the game’s development, or did Carlton’s game evolve because of its excess of small talent.
In Richmond’s case, there is no doubt. The Tigers kept Bartlett when he could easily have been let go. They bought Sarah from Geelong and last season Rowlings from Hawthorn.
We watch their future with interest.
Naturally, you need more than just the small chaps. And Richmond did. It had a wonderful defence, working tightly together, never attempting risks. And a peerless ruckman in Mark Lee.
Lee rucked all day and could have rucked all night. He probably did, his afternoon was such a dream.
He won all the knockouts and most of the marks he attempted. He bullocked, he bustled, he directed. And he humbled Brownlow medallist Peter Moore.
The Tigers’ only worry, strangely, was the scoreboard success of its main forwards David Cloke and Michael Roach. Both managed five goals, but they did it playing behind more often than not.
Roach especially needs to watch he does not fall into the trap of playing behind, hoping his leaping skill will overcome all. It might work once or twice, but never consistently.”
Match details
Richmond 3.2 4.3 9.9 16.13 (109)
Collingwood 2.2 5.6 7.7 8.9 (57)
Goals – Richmond: Cloke 5, Roach 5, Sarah 2, Bartlett, Rowlings, Weightman, Wiley.
Best – Richmond: Lee, Smith, Dunne, Bourke, Weightman, Rowlings, Wood.
Goals – Collingwood: Davis 3, R. Shaw 2, Daicos, Johnston, Wearmouth.
Best – Collingwood: Hannebery, McCormack, Morris, R. Shaw.
