Over the course of history, six teams in VFL/AFL history spent the entire season on top of the ladder before playing off in the Grand Final.
There have been three premiers and three runners-up.
Port Adelaide is the seventh... what will their fate be?
PORT ADELAIDE: A FIGHT AGAINST HISTORY
Port Adelaide are three wins away from a ‘Go-to-Whoa’ premiership that has been achieved only three times in the League’s 123-year history and once in the last 96 years.
Since the 1897 formation of the then VFL, now AFL, only Fitzroy in 1904, Essendon in 1923 and Essendon again in 2000 have won the flag after sitting on top of the premiership ladder every week of the season.
Statistically, a Port Adelaide flag in the Covid season like no other would be the best of all.
While Fitzroy were beaten grand finalists in 1903 and Essendon were beaten preliminary finalists in 1922 and 1999 before winning the flag Port are looking to do likewise after finishing 10th last year.
But there is also a frightening precedent that will haunt the Power ahead of the finals.
Three times a club has been ranked #1 from Round 1 all the way to the grand final only to lose.
That nightmare outcome befell Collingwood in 1915, Geelong in 1953 and West Coast in 1991.
Similarly, in a fact that won’t have escaped the attention of the other finalists this year, no less than 26 times the premiership has been won by a club that went the entire season without getting to the top of the ladder.
Most recently, Richmond did exactly that in 2019 and 2017 after Hawthorn did so in 2015.
Similarly worrying for Port fans is the precedent that 16 times the minor premier has missed the grand final – most recently Geelong in 2019, Richmond in 2018 and Fremantle in 2015.
Port’s total domination of the 2020 ladder is in total contrast to the ladder of 1997 when seven different clubs sat at #1 at various times and the lead changes no less than 12 times.
Adelaide, premiers for the first time in 1997, sat on top of the ladder just once at Round 19.
This was after West Coast (4 times), Collingwood (4), Essendon (1), Geelong (6), Western Bulldogs (4) and StKilda (2) also filled the #1 position at various times through the 22-round season.
Season 1996 was similar – six different teams occupied the #1 slot and the lead changed 11 times.
And for the trivia buffs, which club has spent more time at #1 on the ladder since 1897?
It’s been a three-way battle between Collingwood (333), Carlton (322) and Essendon (309).
Then follows Geelong (203), Hawthorn (180), Melbourne (178), South Melbourne/Sydney (141), Richmond (141), Fitzroy (136), StKilda (84), Western Bulldogs (82), West Coast (79), North Melbourne (69), Port Adelaide (48), Adelaide (38), Brisbane (34), Fremantle (21), GWS (7) and University (1). Gold Coast have never been #1.
University? Yes, the club which played in the then VFL from 1908-14, winning 27 of 126 games sat on top of the ladder after Round 1 in 1909 after they beat Carlton by 15 points. The other four games were decided by nine points, 10 points and 11 points (twice).
Founded in 1859 by students and graduates from the University of Melbourne, University were formally admitted to the League in October 1907 as the ninth team alongside Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong Melbourne, South Melbourne and StKilda. Richmond became the 10th club a fortnight later.
It goes without saying that the three ‘Go to Whoa’ premierships were very special. Fitzroy in 1904, Essendon in 1923 and Essendon again in 2000. Each was a story in itself.
FITZROY IN 1904
Beaten by Collingwood by two points in the 1903 grand final, Fitzroy sat on top of the ladder after Round 1 with a percentage of 771.4 after a 16-12 (108) to 1-8 (14) win over Carlton at Princes Park and never looked back.
Even three games in their percentage was a monstrous 414.3 and after 14 games in which each of the teams played each other at home and away they had a 10-4 record to sit half a game ahead of Carlton, a game clear on South Melbourne and two games clear of Collingwood.
They beat South and seventh-placed Geelong in the first two of three sectional matches before losing by 61 points to Essendon in the third sectional match. It wasn’t as if it was a tactical move, with Fitzroy two and a half games clear with one game to play, because the side was the same but for one change.
Under the finals system in operation at time, it was 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 in the semi-finals, with the winners to meet in the grand final.
Known at the time as the Maroons, Fitzroy rebounded to beat Collingwood by 11 points and Carlton accounted for Essendon by three points.
So, the MCG grand final was to be a re-match of the Round 1 match in Fitzroy won by 94 points.
Fitzroy were captained by Gerald Brosnan, who in the 1903 grand final had missed a 30m shot straight in front on the final siren that would have won the game. It was a chance to atone.
Brosnan, later to coach University and Melbourne, led an 18-man side that had just one change from the Round 1 clash. Precisely half the Carlton side was different.
If somehow Carlton had won the grand final then Fitzroy would have had the right to challenge them to a re-match the following week because Fitzroy had been minor premiers. But a rematch wasn’t necessary, even though Carlton produced a vastly improved showing from the start of the season.
The new-look Blues side had rallied under the direction of ex-Fitzroy VFA player John Worrall, who in 1902 had been appointed the League’s first official coach. Also a Test cricketer and secretary of the Carlton Cricket Club, Worrall had famously played an entire match for Fitzroy against South Melbourne in the last game of 1884 in his cricketing ‘flannels’.
It had been his first season with Fitzroy, but after losing his place in the side he had turned his focus to cricket and was playing a match at Albert Park when Fitzroy found themselves a man short and coerced Worrall into helping out.
As ‘coach’ at Carlton Worrall took on a footballing role that had previously been filled primarily by the captain, and the players relished his discipline and coaching methods.
Fielding an unchanged side from the semi-final, Fitzroy kicked into a strong wind in the first quarter in front of an MCG crowd of 32,688 but were much the better side and led by 12 points at the first break.
Carlton rallied and led 3-3 to 3-2 at halftime but Fitzroy kicked the only two goals of the third quarter, including a brilliant individual effort from Percy Trotter, to grab control. They went on to win 9-7 (61) to 5-7 (31).
Trotter, regarded as the League’s premier rover of his era and easily distinguished by the trademark red cap he played in, was widely considered the best player in the grand final. He was later named in the Fitzroy Team of the Century.
Ironically, three months later Worrall, a middle-order batsman and medium-pace bowler, would make his Test cricket debut at the MCG as a fill-in again under even more bizarre circumstances.
England, in Australia for the 1884-85 summer, had won the first Test in Adelaide, but after a financial dispute prior to the second Test at the MCG in which the Australian amateur players demanded 50 percent of gate-takings the entire Australian side was changed. Worrall played the first of 11 Test matches as one of the replacements.
ESSENDON IN 1923
Essendon had lost the 1922 preliminary final to eventual premiers Fitzroy and went into 1923 under captain-coach Syd Barker Snr, who had taken charge of the Bombers midway through the ’22 season from first-choice coach Sam ‘Boyd’ Gravenall.
Barker, after whom the North Melbourne B&F award is named, had been a star with North during their “Invincibles” years in the VFA and had joined Essendon in 1921 as part of a plan under which the two clubs would merge.
When the merger didn’t go ahead he stayed with the Bombers and led the club to the 1923-24 flags.
But the famous ‘Go to Whoa’ premiership in 1923 had an asterisk. It was only secured via the old challenge rule via which, from 1907-1930 (except 1924) the home-and-away minor premiers had the right to challenge if they lost either their first or second final.
By 1922 the challenge had been used 12 times – seven times successfully. Essendon had been involved in a challenge match just once when they were targeted by minor premiers South Melbourne in 1912. They’d won by 14 points to claim their fourth flag.
In 1923 Essendon had finished two games plus percentage clear after 18 rounds. But under the 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 semi-final system the Bombers lost by 17 points to third-placed South Melbourne after second-placed Fitzroy had beaten fourth-placed Geelong.
So, after Fitzroy beat South by 12 points in what became listed as the preliminary final it was challenge payback time for Essendon. Having survived a challenge from South in 1912 they issued a challenge of their own against the club officially called the ‘Southerners’ but more often known as the ‘Bloods’ or the ‘Bloodstained Angels’.
Coach Barker made no less than five changes at selection for the grand final, including the shock late inclusion of 33-year-old debutant George Rawle, another ex-North VFA premiership star who had been the Reserves coach.
The other four were key inclusions - 1922-23-24 B&F winner Tom Fitzmaurice, champion rover Charlie Hardy, veteran ruck/defender Fred Baring and key forward Tommy Jenkins.
Fitzmaurice and Jenkins had been regulars throughout the year but Hardy, another ex-North VFA star who in 1921 had become the oldest VFL/AFL debutant at 34 years 100 days, had played only Rounds 1-2-3-13-14. Baring, a 1911-12 Essendon premiership players, had only played Rounds 1-2-7.
Hardy was all of 5’3” under the old measuring system and one of seven members of what was known as the “Mosquito Fleet”. The others were Rowley Watt (5’4”), George Shorten (5’5”), Jack Garden (5’5”), Vince Irwin (5’6”), Frank Maher (5’6”) and Jimmy Sullivan (5’6”). Garnet Campbell (5’7.5”) and Greg Stockdale (5’8”) were veritable giants.
In what shaped as a battle between Essendon’s speed and Fitzroy’s brute strength, the ‘Mozzies’ had wanted fine conditions. They didn’t get them. Not even close. So much rain fell in Melbourne that the grand final was postponed a week and played on 20 October.
Fitzroy were warm favorites and led by a point at quarter-time and half-time. Essendon’s inaccuracy had been costly as they took a 4-10 scoreline to the long break. But the Bombers kicked 2-3 to 0-4 in the third term to lead by 10 points at the final change.
Fitzroy, coached by Vic Belcher and captained by Gordon Rattray, hit hard and often early in the last quarter and Essendon looked to be wilting until an unlikely hero stepped up.
As Jim Main wrote in the book AFL Grand Finals: “Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Frank Maher weaved his way through a pack for the goal that broke Fitzroy’s heart”.
Maher, in his 45th game at 28, had only begun playing football while serving overseas as a machine gunner in the First Australian Imperial Force from 1916 to 1919.
Having enlisted as a private, he held the rank of Lieutenant at his discharge after being awarded the Military Medal for gallantry for his actions during the Battle of Broodseinde in France in October 1917.
Shorten, widely considered best afield, sealed the 8-15 (63) to 6-10 (46) win in front of an MCG crowd of 46,566.
Rawle, who had played in three VFA premierships with Barker at North Melbourne, was a “tough customer” chosen specifically to take on the physically intimidating Fitzroy side and protect the ‘Fleet’.
He did just that and became the third of six VFL/AFL players to debut in a grand final and the second of four to win a flag on debut.
Essendon’s Harry Prout had played in a loss on debut in 1908 and Richmond’s Bill James in a win in his only game in 1920. After Rawle’s fairytale flag in 1923 Melbourne’s Frank Vine began his career with a win in 1926 and Collingwood’s Keith Batchelor with a loss in 1952. Richmond’s Marlion Pickett was the sixth grand final debutant and fourth win in 2019.
By the time the challenge system was abandoned in 1930 it had been used 17 by the minor premiers – 10 times successfully. Nine clubs were involved – Collingwood most often. They were the challenger seven times and the target of the challenge three times for an even 5-5 split overall.
| GRAND FINAL 'CHALLENGE' SUMMARY | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Challengers | Target of Challenge | Total 'Challenge' Matches | ||||||
| Count | Won | Lost | Count | Won | Lost | Played | Won | Lost | |
| Carlton | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Collingwood | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| Essendon | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Fitzroy | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Geelong | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Melbourne | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Richmond | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| StKilda | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| South Melb | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Total | 17 | 10 | 7 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 34 | 17 | 17 |
ESSENDON IN 2000
Kevin Sheedy celebrated his 20th season as Essendon coach as the club went within a whisker of the League’s first perfect season, going 21-1 through the home-and-away campaign and 3-0 in the finals.
It had been football’s mission impossible. In 1929 Collingwood had become the first and still only side to go unbeaten through the home-and-away season, winning 18 games for a percentage of 171.7.
After a shock 62-point semi-final loss to Richmond Collingwood regrouped beat Richmond by 29 points in the grand final under the finals system which gave the minor premiers the right of challenge if they were beaten in the semi-finals.
For 20 weeks in Essendon looked likely to go one better. It was and still is the longest unbeaten start to an AFL season in history, ahead of StKilda’s 19-game unbeaten run in 2009 and Collingwood’s 18-game start in 1929.
Having lost the 1999 preliminary final by a point, Essendon opened their 2020 campaign with a 94-point thumping of Port Adelaide for a Round 1 percentage of 251.6. They were unbeaten until Round 20 when they faced sixth-placed Western Bulldogs at Docklands.
It was the game of the famous ‘super flood’ masterminded by Dogs coach Terry Wallace, who at times stationed as many as 14 players in the defensive arc to stifle the free-scoring Bombers.
The Dogs were 15 points down at three-quarter time and 22 points down late in the final term before three quick goals got them back into it.
Then, with his side a point up inside the last two minutes, veteran Bomber Dustin Fletcher kicked the ball out on the full in the pocket and Dogs great Chris Grant slotted what turned out to be the match-winner from a tight angle.
The Dogs added another late one and won 14-8 (92) to 12-9 (81). Scott West was best afield with 30 possessions in what was Robert Murphy’s third game.
Essendon regrouped to beat Collingwood in Round 22 and finish five games plus percentage clear on the home-and-away ladder.
In the qualifying final they thumped North 31-12 (198) to 11-7 (73) at Docklands. Matthew Lloyd kicked seven goals, James Hird five and Joe Misiti four to go with 41 possessions. David King kicked seven goals for North.
In the preliminary final Essendon beat Carlton by 45 points and, with Hird picking up the Norm Smith Medal, hammered Melbourne by 60 points in the grand final to complete the AFL’s most recent ‘Go to Whoa’ premiership.
If a ‘Go to Whoa’ premiership is football’s the most fulfilling and comprehensive achievement then a season spent on top of the ladder from Round 1 only to lose the grand final is the most devastating and deflating. Like Collingwood in 1915, Geelong in 1953 and West Coast in 1991.
A COLLINGWOOD CALAMITY IN 1915
The 1915 season started on the very day the Anzacs landed on the shores of Gallipoli. The First World War was raging throughout Europe and there was strong consideration given to cancelling the football season. It continued on a 6-4 vote. And when it finished five months later there were Collingwood fans wishing it hadn’t.
The Pies suffered the first of football’s great heartbreaks when they sat on top of the ladder from Round 1 only to lose the grand final.
In their fourth season under coach Jock McHale after finishing 7th-4th-5th under the future Hall of Fame Legend, Collingwood headed the Round 1 ladder with a percentage of 200.00.
It was a ladder made up of nine teams after University, members of the competition for the previous seven years, had withdrawn on 16 October 1914. After promising campaigns from 1908-10 they had finished last from 1911-14 and lost their last 51 matches.
Also to blame was the fact that, especially during mid-year exams, the players were more focussed on their studies than football. And, while payment to players had been permitted from 1911, University had chosen to remain fully amateur and draw solely from university students. They had lost a lot of players to other clubs.
Collingwood finished minor premiers with a 14-2 record, half a game ahead of Carlton despite losing twice to Carlton by one point and two point. Fitzroy were third two games further back.
But after Carlton eliminated fourth-placed Melbourne in the first semi-final Fitzroy shocked Collingwood in the second semi-final 9-16 (70) to 4-12 (36) after Collingwood led by five points at halftime.
So, after Carlton beat Fitzroy by 15 points in what went into the record books as the preliminary final, the challenge rule was activated for the sixth time. Collingwood had only been involved in one challenge match previously when they won a challenge from 1910 minor premiers Carlton. They were looking to make it two from two.
Coach McHale made a huge call at selection. Among four changes to the side that had lost to Fitzroy he included club favorite Ted Rowell.
A product of the West Australian goldfields, he was a real Collingwood hero. He played 188 games for the club for 175 goals, was a three-time premiership player in 1902-03-10, topped the club goal-kicking in 1901-02, and even stood in as coach 12 times in 1907-08.
And that despite missing two years of football, having returned to WA for personal reasons in 1904 and been forced by the League to sit out the 1905 awaiting a permit to resume playing in 1906.
In 1907 the 178cm utility was switched to defence and become one of the game’s first attacking defenders, known for tapping the ball to himself at fullback and setting off on a long run down the wing.
He was also a professional runner and once raced world record holder Jack Donaldson over 100 yards at halftime in a match in which he was playing. He lost only narrowly despite a 50-minute football “warm up”.
But there was a small problem – he hadn’t played in more than 12 months since the last home-and-away game of 1914. And he was 39. Or more specifically 39 years 95 days. More than 100 years on he is still the sixth-oldest player in VFL/AFL history.
At the other end of the age scale, Carlton were skippered by Alf Baud who, in his 53rd game, was three days short of his 23rd birthday.
At the time Baud was the youngest premiership captain and today he ranks second only to 1958 Collingwood premiership skipper Murray Weidemann, who was 146 days younger at 22 years 216 days.
It was to be Baud’s last game. He joined the military soon after what was his second premiership and after serving as a signaller in Egypt and France suffered a serious shrapnel injury to his head.
Carrying a silver plate in his head for the rest of his life, he was left with reduced sight but after the war, while working in the post office, he spent 19 years on the VFL tribunal and served as Carlton chairman of selectors in 1937 when they won their first flag since 1915.
Baud skippered the Blues in the 1915 grand final because 1914 premiership captain Billy Dick had incurred an 11-match suspension in Round 10.
Remarkably, Dick, too, had eyesight problems. He was blind in one eye and was known for his curious habit of turning his face side-on as he leapt for the ball so he could focus with his good eye.
But the remarkable interlocking stories of the 1915 premiership decided didn’t end there.
Collingwood players Percy Rowe, who played under the name Paddy Rowan, and Malcolm Seddon were based at Broadmeadows Army camp in the lead-up to the 1915 grand final and were only granted leave to play in the match through the efforts Collingwood secretary Mr.E.W.Copeland.
Rowe, Victorian amateur lightweight boxing champion who had turned professional in 1910, played football under the name Rowan because, as legend has it, he had signed under his real name to play with South Bendigo in 1911 prior to joining Collingwood.
A member of Collingwood’s losing grand final side in 1911, he played his 82nd and last game in the 1915 grand final loss and after joining the military died from schrapnel wounds suffered in the ‘Battle of the Somme’ in France in December 1916.
Coincidentally, another Percy Rowe, unrelated to Rowe/Rowan, later played 96 games with Collingwood during the 1920s. And Rowan’s son, also Percy Rowe, played a number of games in the Collingwood Seconds.
Seddon played his 61st game in the 1915 grand final before he, too, joined the war effort. He fought in Europe and spent time in the Middle-East from 1915-19, famously sending home a horseshoe made from a German bomb and the remnants of a German aircraft shot down by Australian soldiers in the same battle in which his good mate Rowe had died.
The horseshoe, sent to Collingwood as a gesture of good luck, is displayed in the club museum.
Seddons returned to the club in time to play in the 1919 premiership and had reached 102 games for the club by his retirement in 1921.
Of course, the great story of the special leave granted to Rowan and Seddon to play in the grand final didn’t end there. The pair had been put through a 10-mile route mark on the morning of the game by the drill sergeant. As folklore has it, he was a Carlton supporter.
Just as Rowan and Baud played their last game for Carlton in the grand final, so, too, did Rowell for Collingwood.
He didn’t disappoint in his 189th game, and was named in his side’s better players, but he was denied a fairytale finish when the Blues overran the Pies in the closing minutes.
Down by five points at three-quarter time, Collingwood hit the front via Dick Lee’s third goal. Spirits were high among the Magpie army before a Carlton rally sparked by what was described as “a dubious mark” paid to Carlton’s Herb Burleigh.
Burleigh, who had enlisted during the 1915 season but deferred his call-up until after the grand final, kicked his second goal to put his side back in front. He added two more as Carlton kicked the last six to win 11-12 (78) to 6-9 (45).
Former Carlton coach John Worrall, writing in The Australasian, described the grand final as “a glorious contest” and “one of the grandest that has ever taken place in the finals” but described umpire Arthur Norden as “too strict”.
Worrall wrote of the man who went on to officiate in 183 matches, 10 finals and two more grand finals: “He evidently loves the music of the whistle, which jarred on everyone’s nerves”.
Burleigh, fourth in League goal-kicking in 1915 after his game-high four in the grand final, was injured during his war time overseas. But after being discharged medically unfit he returned to Australia in January 1918 and played three more games for Carlton in 1919 before retiring a 32-game veteran at 27.
A CATS CATASHROPHE IN 1953
After 13 games in 1953 Geelong were unbeaten on top of the ladder, four wins ahead of the competition, with a percentage of 155.3%. Expectations were high that the Cats would not only complete back-to-back premierships but would be the first team in VFL/AFL history to go through the season undefeated.
Instead, an unprecedented high turned into a nightmare low when the Cats lost the grand final after sitting on top of the ladder from Round 1.
Premiers in 1951, they’d gone 16-1-2 through the 1952 home-and-away season, won the semi-final by 54 points and the grand final against Collingwood by 46 points to complete back-to-back flags.
It was a young side that was only going to get better under coach Reg Hickey, with only Jim Norman of the ’52 premiership side having moved on. They posted a League record of 23 consecutive wins that still stands today and stretched a run of games without a loss to 26.
The unthinkable happened in Round 14 when they lost by 20 points to fourth-placed Collingwood, and the impossible followed in Round 15 when they lost to second-placed Essendon by 11 points.
After they were thumped by 43 points by eighth-placed South Melbourne in Round 17 an improving Collingwood were installed as premiership favorites. When they lost the first semi-final to Collingwood by five goals after leading narrowly at every change the bookies looked to have it right.
Still, they hadn’t finished minor premiers for no reason, and after they beat third-placed Footscray by 26 points in the preliminary final things were starting to swing. Perhaps a three-peat was on the cards after all.
On grand final day 11 members of the Geelong side were chasing a premiership hat-trick, having played in the 1951-52 flags. They were Team of the Century members Bob Davis, Fred Flanagan Peter Pianto, Bernie Smith and Leo Turner, plus Ron Hovey, John Hyde, Bruce Morrison, Russell Renfrey, Neil Tresize and Bert Worner.
And there could have been two more. Russell Middlemiss was injured in the semi-final after he’d played every game of the season, and star forward George Goninon was sensationally dropped for the preliminary final and the grand final after having been caught having an affair.
Goninon had been Geelong’s leading goal-kicker from 1950-53. His 1953 total of 65 goals, which included one in the semi-final, was second in the League to Essendon’s John Coleman and 37 goals ahead of the No.2 Geelong goal-kicker Neil Tresize (28).
It was 54 years before the story became public when, in 2007, an 80-year-old Goninon and living on the Gold Coast at the time, admitted his adultery with a ‘pretty nurse’.
‘No one would have cared too hoots if it happened these days,” he told Ken Piesse on the Herald Sun. “I didn’t go near the club for a long while after that. I was an outcast and always felt that way.”
Geelong was a club dominated at the time by strict Sunday church-goers and known for their what described as family values and high moral code.
But at the same time as Goninon broke his silence Fred Flanagan, Geelong captain at the time and a member of the match committee that voted him out, admitted it was “a silly decision”.
Regular defender Russell Renfrey, included in the grand final side at the expense of Ivan Baumgartner, filled Goninon’s big shoes at full forward and kicked seven behinds.
Asked if the Cats would have won if Goninon had played, Renfrey said: “No doubt He would have kicked four goals minimum. We only lost by two.”
The Collingwood side, coached for the fourth year by Phonse Kyne, included three sets of brothers from famous Collingwood families – captain Lou Richards and brother Ron, Bill, Mick and Pat Twomey, and Bob and Bill Rose.
With experienced key defender Frank Tuck missing through suspension, coach Kyne made two selection changes for the grand final – including a 17-year-old Murray Weidemann for his fifth game and welcoming back Pat Twomey to replace Jack Hickey and Peter Lucas, who had been regulars throughout the season.
Collingwood led by two points at quarter-time and nine points at halftime after the wasteful Cats had kicked 1-7 in the second term and before the Magpies piled on five goals in the third quarter to lead by 29 points at three-quarter time. And Geelong had lost ruckman Bill McMaster to injury.
Half forward Davis kicked two quick goals to lift the Cats before a brilliant handball from Ron Richards created a goal for Bob Rose. And although the Cats rallied again the Pies won 11-11 (77) to 8-17 (65) before carrying captain Lou Richards shoulder high from the ground.
Keith Batchelor, who debuted in Collingwood’s 1952 grand final loss to Geelong, led the 1953 grand final goal-kicking with four.
WEAGLES WOES IN 1991
West Coast were fast becoming a football juggernaut. They’d been preliminary finalists in just their fourth season in the AFL in 1990, and when they won their first 12 games of 1991 fears were growing in Victoria that for the first time the premiership cup would head interstate.
The Adelaide Crows had become the competition’s 15th team, prompting a rejig of the home-and-away fixture whereby byes were reintroduced for the first time since 1943. Seven teams had a bye in Round 1 and one team every round thereafter. A six-team finals system was introduced.
And for the first Waverley Park was scheduled to host all Melbourne finals, including the grand final, while the Great Southern Stand at the MCG was built in preparation for the 1992 Cricket World Cup.
Mick Malthouse, in his second year in charge of the Eagles, had elevated a 22-year-old John Worsfold to the captaincy and looked on with delight as they opened their campaign with a thumping 79-point win over Melbourne. With a percentage of 495.0% they sat on top of an abbreviated Round 1 ladder.
There they would stay for the entire season.
Not until Round 14 did they suffer their first loss to 10th-placed Carlton by three points at Princes Park, and even after another three-point loss to North Melbourne at the MCG in Round 19 they were two games plus a huge percentage clear on top.
The first real sign that things were not quite as coach Malthouse may have wished when, in the final home-and-away round, they lost by 10 points to bottom side Fitzroy after leading by 26 points at halftime.
They still finished three games clear on top. It was West Coast from Hawthorn, Geelong, StKilda, Melbourne and Essendon.
Was the Eagles’ Round 24 loss a worry? Or was it just a bad second half in a game which could not effect the Eagles’ position heading into the finals?
The following week, for the first time in history, an AFL final was played outside Victoria. It was minor premiers West Coast hosting second-placed Hawthorn at Subiaco.
The Eagles had beaten the Hawks by 24 points at the same venue in Round 22 but after leading by five points at quarter time they went down 15-11 (101) to 18-16 (124).
It was a loss that cost them any further home finals under the finals system in place at the time. They would have to do it all in Melbourne.
A worry? The jury was still out, but when the Eagles crunched Melbourne17-15 (117) to 12-7 (79) in the semi-final at Waverley and then accounted for Geelong 11-13 (79) to 8-16 (64) at Waverley in the preliminary final the Round 24 loss and even the semi-final loss to Hawthorn had been discounted.
Chris Mainwaring, named in the All-Australian side, was included in the grand final side after missing the last two home-and-away games and the first three finals. He replaced Adrian Barich in the only selection change.
Hawthorn, who had beaten Geelong by two points in the semi-final to reach the grand final, also made one change. Dermott Brereton returned at the expense of Matthew Robran, who never played for the club again.
With 75,230 people crammed into Waverley, West Coast kicked four goals almost before Hawthorn got out of first gear. There were no signs of Eagles nerves in their first grand final.
But the Hawks cut the margin to nine points by quarter-time and were 10 up by halftime. It was 7-12 to 7-2. Had they kicked more accurately it could have been over.
With ruckman Stephen Lawrence playing the game of his life, and key forwards Brereton and Jason Dunstall kicking 10 goals between them, the more experienced Hawks withstood all that the Eagles could throw at them.
West Coast had not conceded 100 points in a game all year – the first team since 1967 to do so. Trailing 12-5 to 12-15 at three-quarter time they were going to need something special in the last term to continue that run and win the flag.
It wasn’t to be. The Hawks, almost three years per player older than the Eagles and more than 50 games per player more experienced, handled the occasion magnificently and cruised to a 20-19 (139) to 13-8 (86) win as Paul Dear collected the Norm Smith Medal.
Captain Michael Tuck, in his 426th and last game and his 39th final, held the premiership cup aloft with coach Alan Joyce as the collective Victorian football audience breathed a huge sigh of relief.
It was a shattering slide for the Eagles, who had been top of the ladder from Round 1, but they would learn quickly and win their first AFL premiership 12 months later.