The absolute golden period of the Hafey era was 1972 to 1974. This is when the whole Graeme Richmond Arrogant Tigers thing got into full swing. It finally came to a head in the infamous Windy Hill brawl in 1975 but that is a bedtime story for another day. Let’s just stick to finals.
The Tigers of 1967 to 70 had been a bit of a glamour team. Royce Hart had burst onto the scene as a 19 year old prodigy, Francis Bourke, *smile* Clay and Barry Richardson were all young and skilful players. Billy Barrot was an excitement machine. Geoff Strang was dashing across half-back. The centre-line of Bourke, Barrot and Clay was dynamic. Heck, even KB had hair.
These young stars complimented a number of old codgers who had battled over long careers and finally had success, which no-one really begrudged. Neville Crowe, Paddy Guinane, Roger Dean, Freddy Swift. The Tigers didn’t even make finals once between their flags in 1943 and 1967. I won’t say everyone loved them but they had a bit of 2016 Bulldogs feel good about them.
By 1972 it was a different story. Graeme Richmond and his off-sider Alan Schwab were keen to keep the success going, recruiting from all over Australia. Ready made footballers came across from Interstate every season. They poached players consistently from other clubs, often leaving them resentful. That’s the clubs that became resentful, the players usually just won Premierships. They worked their local and country zones relentlessly, in a time when the others just let the good kids on their zone come up for a training session and go from there.
Think Adrian Dodoro, but with rat cunning, street smarts, intelligence, school of hard knocks charm and charisma. And more belligerence, way more belligerence! Actually, don’t think Dodoro, just mentioning him in this context is so wrrrronnnnng. Just pretend you didn’t read that bit.
Each year, the firsts, seconds and thirds would all win most of their games. They had an endless line of good players coming through their system. Didn’t stop them poaching whoever they wanted though. In 1974, their reserves team was so strong it could probably have beaten half the senior teams. They were a power house. A really annoying one, too. The fans expected to see their team win each week and were loud and in everyone’s grill.
In 1972, Richmond and Carlton dominated the competition together. They pretty much belted every other team and ended up playing each other five times, twice during the season, then they drew in a semi-final, replayed it the next week and met again in the Grand Final. Richmond won the two H&A games and the semi-Final replay and were odds-on favourites. During that September, the other ten clubs were just footnotes.
In a stunning Grand Final, Carlton jumped them and won by 27 points, kicking 28 goals, 9 points. Richmond’s losing score equalled the previous GF record score. In the dying minutes of that game, Neil Balme belted the very popular David McKay, breaking his jaw. It was the first salvo in a bigger war that set the scene for the spiteful 1973 Grand Final against the Blues.
Off-field, Richmond‘s hierarchy was also incensed that KB had two outstanding seasons in 73 and 74 but didn’t win a Brownlow, especially in 1973. They let everyone know what they thought of this too.
The Empire of Evil was on its way, relentlessly peeing-off anyone and everyone, in every way possible. Sometimes, they even did it just for fun, just because they could.
Hafey himself loved to use the old “Boys, it’s us against the world“ routine. He was happiest when they had their backs to the wall and had to win the flag to “make things right again,” or just to get even with someone who looked at them sideways. So every year, GR and Schwabby would pick a fight, light a fire at VFL House over something ridiculous and Tommy would do the rest.
Don’t you just miss them simple days?
