Molly wrote:
It was interesting to see the first half Bluey,
being born in 1975, my understanding of the game has always been sketchy. I thought folklore had it that Neil Balme decked Southby early, and that we were stuffed from then on.
But Southby's whack came well into the second quarter, and we'd been playing catch-up most of the time before that. Maybe the Tigers just wanted revenge for '72 just a little more than we wanted back-to-back flags? Who knows, but we didn't look as switched on as they did. Certainly Big Nick was proppy, and we couldn't find a winner up forward (Craig Davis was pretty inaccurate)
There was some dirty play though. One bloke went to kick Brent Crosswell in the head. The commentators only saw Brent's retaliation, and started having a go at him about being a hot head!
By the way, for some of those with long memories, when did they change over to a centre square? Watching a game where the centre square was different confused the hell out of me! I could never figure out where the ball was!!!
I know this is not exactly on the Doull topic and while I too was too young to remember the game, I believe a poor trade was a major contributing factor to what happened that day. I saw an edition of Grumpy Old Men on Fox Footy a few years ago and a guy called Ricky McLean was on the show. He crossed to Richmond from Carlton around this time (between 1972/73). McLean was a hard man from what they said on the show, he said he was amazed to discover that the Tiger plavers were wary or intimidated by some Carlton Players. He said he set them straight and that most of the Carlton players were not that hard and were all bluff.
I've also heard Big Nick say when he was flattened in the first quarter, he really wasn't with it (slightly concussed and struggling) and played basically out of the forward pocket for the rest of the game. As the Captain/Coach he wasn't well placed to make changes and understand what was going on or make decisions. I've also heard speculation that the sight of the strongman Nick going down early in the game put a shock through the Carlton players and set the tone for the game.
I don't think I mind the physical intimidation in the game from that era and Fowlers hit on big Nick looked reasonably fair. But every time I see footage of Balme king hit of Southby it sickens me. Southby's in front playing the ball and Balme smashes him from behind. Cowardly really couldn't face him and do it, it's pathetic from my memories of Southby he was a ball player and no fighter and probably would have faired that well face to face. But it was a low act and I always consider Balmes failure as a coach a bit of pay back karma for a weak dog. May father maintained that Southby was never as good a player after the broken jaw. Yet Southby was a stand out Full Back during the time he played and may well have beaten Silvagni for Full Back of the Century if he was eligable to be named so.