THE RIVALRY Tigers V Blues
THE RIVALRY IN some moments of high passion, words just get in the way. Richmond coaching legend Tom Hafey recognised the lead-up to the Tigers' 1973 VFL grand final triumph over arch-rival Carlton as one such occasion. The Tigers had been stunned by the Blues in the previous year's decider. And Carlton was favoured to go back-to-back. But five minutes into what was meant to be a half-hour pre-game team meeting, Hafey looked into the eyes of his revenge-bent players and realised further instruction was pointless. "It was like men on a mission," Hafey said of the subsequent walk from Punt Road Oval to the MCG. "There was not a word spoken, it was just freakish. We absolutely annihilated them." It wasn't just on the scoreboard that Richmond gave the Blues a beating. Richmond's Laurie Fowler ironed out Carlton's renowned hard man and captain-coach John Nicholls early in the game, a moment that stunned both sides. "There was a bit of disbelief when Nicholls went down because we'd never seen the big bloke hurt like that before," Carlton's Robert Walls, who was on the losing side that day, recalled. Less surprising was Tiger tough man Neil Balme downing Carlton's Geoff Southby. Richmond champion Francis Bourke subsequently wrote of the victory: "I never realised how sweet revenge could be."
A year earlier the Blues had enjoyed their own sweet upset grand final win over Richmond. The Tigers had beaten them in all three of their previous meetings that season, including a semi-final thumping a fortnight earlier. "We were expected to kill them in the grand final," Hafey recalls. But Nicholls had hatched a plan after the semi-final loss to turn the tables. "We had to get over St Kilda in the preliminary final, which we did," Walls said. "But he'd sown the seed even before that preliminary final that we were going to be attacking and that we were just going to take the game on. As it turned out he was spot on." The Blues kicked 28.9 (177) to Richmond's 22.18 (150), still the highest winning and losing scores respectively in a grand final. Alex Jesaulenko, Nicholls and Walls booted 19 goals between them. The rivalry truly sprung to life from 1967-82, when the two clubs met 11 times in finals, including four grand finals. The first and last of those meetings also produced a moment that lives on in football memory. In their 1967 semi-final, Richmond's first final in 20 years, the Tigers beat Carlton comfortably to reach the decider. But Richmond's triple-best and fairest winner and former captain, Neville Crowe, was reported for striking Nicholls during the game. Replays indicated Nicholls took a dive, but video evidence wasn't then in use by the tribunal. Crowe was suspended and sadly missed out on Richmond's subsequent premiership in what was the final year of his career. Hafey, who described Crowe as a "squeaky clean" player, said his controversial ban probably contributed to the subsequent ill-feeling between the clubs. The 1982 grand final, won by the Blues, is remembered for another reason. It was a spectacular game and the gateway to the Tigers' wilderness years. But it's even better known for bringing nudity to football, as Helen D'Amico became the league's first grand final streaker. The Tigers have since played finals football just twice, but their most recent finals win came against the Blues, in 2001. The paucity of recent big-game meetings between the clubs hasn't dulled the fan passion for the rivalry. A crowd of more than 80,000 turned out to watch the Tigers win the clubs' traditional opening-round fixture this year. It was Richmond's only victory over the Blues in their past 11 meetings. But with the two sides together in the finals for just the second time since 1982, Tiger fans couldn't dream of a better time for another.
