To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1980 premiership, Richmond Media 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 ‘The Age’ football writer Geoff Slattery’s review of Richmond’s 1980 second semi-final clash with Geelong at VFL Park, which took place on Saturday, September 13, before a crowd of 65,303.

“Early in the day the talk was of umpires, and football styles. In retrospect, it was the first of many ironies that turned the Second Semi Final into a debate on umpires rather than Richmond and Geelong.

Lunch is an ideal place to open the play. Graeme Richmond, the Tigers’ vice-president, and Allan Nash, the former umpires’ boss, were discussing whether umpires should bounce the ball or throw it up. Both agreed to disagree.

Richmond went even further. He was wondering aloud whether the League was attempting to ease out of the man-to-man, competitive aggression that had made football so great, for so long, in favor of the keepings-off style of Carlton and North Melbourne. “If it’s basketball the League wants, we’ll get Lindsay Gaze as coach,” said Richmond. “If it’s football, we’ll stick to Tony Jewell.”

Three after later, after dessert, and 100 minutes of tough, aggressive, desperate football, the discussion was still on umpires. Only the voices had changed. First came Richmond coach Tony Jewell, blasting Nash’s successor Harry Beitzel, following a lamentation on the report of his excellent back pocket player Mick Malthouse.

There are none tougher at Richmond than Malthouse. He was crying, they say, after the game, unable to believe he had been reported. Jewell’s eyes flamed as he warmed up on the umpires, unconcerned that Richmond had won six more free kicks than Geelong in the recently ended match. A likely penalty wasn’t worrying him: “I don’t care what they do to me. I’ll coach over the fence if I have to.”

Then came Bill Goggin, talking (publicly) more than he has all season. He started his discussion on umpires by asking the interested Press what they thought of Sawers and Sutcliffe.

Met with grunts, Goggin let fly. For umpires it was not pleasant.

Ironic, or unfortunate. Opposing coaches – winner and loser – attacking umpires. Both had plenty of justification, in their own mind. Objectively, Goggin had more. The umpires made mistakes. They always do. These were bad mistakes, and Geelong suffered by them. Enough to lose the game? – certainly not. But enough to make a difference to the margin.

Goggin was sensible enough to list three reasons why Geelong had lost: “Bartlett, our mistakes, and the umpires.” He didn’t put ratings on the three reasons. I will. Bartlett 20 per cent, umpires 20 per cent, mistakes 60 per cent. Bartlett kicked eight goals, but even with that, Geelong could have won. Richmond kicked at least three goals from poor umpiring decisions (Geelong had at least one, by the way), and gained from inconsistent field decisions, but Geelong still could have won.

But Geelong made dreadful errors in fundamental areas – handball, kicking, marking, running, and team pattern. These, and the failure of at least four players to reach finals standard, cost Geelong the game. The umpires, and Bartlett, just made it a little harder for them.

Geelong came out of defence with no set pattern. The defenders discarded the Geelong style of handball, kick long to position. If they did handball, the receiver kicked to nobody. They missed Ian Nankervis.

When they did set up a running pattern, more often than not they messed it up by dropping a handpass, missing a mark, or kicking the ball to the opposition.

It was not a game to be proud of, and Goggin’s disappointment was expressed to his players present (in public view, if not sound – the doors were locked, the windows were clear) straight after the game. There they sat, watching the ground, watching the coach, as he exploded, arms swinging like wind-mills. A man who saw – and heard said simply: “I’ve never seen a man so intense, so emotional in his disappointment.”

Enough of the losers. The winner, Richmond, can be proud of its effort. It won as it has won all year. It attacked the ball with a ferocity that the pretty teams shudder to match, much less counter. (That’s not to say Geelong is a pretty team. One area Geelong did not falter, was in aggression to the ball).

If the Tigers do win the Grand Final, it will be a great credit to the pre-season manoeuvrers who decided it was time ONCE AND FOR ALL to forget the possession game and go for the long desperate game of the 50s and 60s.

It has been Richmond’s finals ferocity that has allowed Bartlett to kick his six and eight goals. And so, another irony: As Bartlett left the ground on Saturday, the Richmond song sounded loud and clear: “We’re the Tigers of old, we’re young and we’re bold.” Bartlett is certainly not young (at 33), and although his courage is beyond question, he is certainly not bold. He is a champion at making the most of opportunities created by his team-mates.

Every time the ball hit Richmond’s forward line, it was contested fiercely. Seven times, Bartlett goaled off the hands of the pack. The other of his eight straight came from a doubtful free. Bartlett was not seeking any rewards: “I had a bit of luck. Any game you win is a good game. Now we’re in the Grand Final. That’s the important thing.”

(Bartlett’s previous best bag of goals was seven. Eight goals in a final is not a Richmond record. That’s held by Jack Dyer – nine against Essendon in 1944).

As wonderful as the Tigers forwards were, so were the defenders. They punched, they dived, they shadowed, they harassed. And over it all was Mark Lee. Geelong’s normal winners just didn’t have a chance.

After the game, after the outburst, Jewell relaxed, was besieged by shy kids seeking autographs. “Last year if I saw a kid with a Richmond jumper in the street, I’d chase him and ask him if he wanted my autograph. Now they are in a queue.”

Jewell laughed. It was just another of the ironies of football.”

Match details

Richmond         3.2       7.3       10.6     14.11 (95)
Geelong            5.2       7.4       9.4       11.5 (71)

Goals – Richmond: Bartlett 8, Roach 2, Monteath, Bourke, Scrimshaw, Jess.
Best – Richmond: Lee, Bartlett, Wiley, Weightman, Mount, Keane, Welsh.

Goals – Geelong: Bright 3, Johnston 2, K. Matthews, Featherby, Clarke, Newman, Bos, B. Nankervis.
Best – Geelong: Middlemiss, Bright, B. Nankervis, Clarke.