“Shop early to avoid the rush.”
Bulldog Legend, Charlie Sutton would have been handy at Christmas. With shopping on the agenda, you always want to get in early to avoid being trampled as people congregate at whatever shopping centre you frequent. At face value, it’s great advice.
In terms of applying that advice on the footy field… well, maybe something a little less open to interpretation would have seen Tony Liberatore not leave Richmond’s Matthew Knights with blood smeared all over his face in their Round Two clash in 2001.
Liberatore claims that line was Sutton’s catchphrase, indicating that the man the Dogs named their Best and Fairest after liked to get in and give his opponent one before the roles had the chance to be reversed. Libba took it to heart and it ignited one of the more intense games of the 2000s.
“I took things into my own hands, I probably shouldn’t have done what I’d done. He was niggling one of our wingmen, Matthew Robbins, and I thought he’s pretty fired up. From the corner of my eye I thought he was going to come through and collect me. I just felt that something was going to happen, so unfortunately I did what Charlie Sutton told me. I got in first.” – Libba on Fox Footy’s Open Mike
Many footy fans have labelled Liberatore’s act as one of the worst of the modern era. It was 80 metres off the footy and action that saw Wayne Campbell break the long-held “players code”, testifying at the AFL tribunal that Liberatore had struck Knights. Up until that point, it was incredibly rare for a player to have seen anything. Ever! Even when it occurred right in front of them. Selective blindness was seemingly a prerequisite for playing league footy.
Richmond were pissed, and with good reason. Knights was one of the Tigers’ prime movers. He, along with Campbell, Leon Cameron, and Matthew Richardson, were the pillars of the team. The Tigers were only going to go as far as those four would carry them. Liberatore, on the other hand, had transformed his game from that of Brownlow Medallist, and one who won awards as the best player in the Under 19s and Reserves before topping the seniors’ most coveted award, to one of the more potent run-with players in the game.
And many believed that his tactics already crossed lines before he took on the Tigers on that fateful day.
He was always going to go to either Knights or Campbell in this game. He went to the former, and the sparks ignited. The vision of Knights. face covered in a crimson mark, like a 1990s WWE wrestler, pointing at Liberatore on the Bulldogs’ bench is one not easily forgotten, and you could easily forgive Knights for holding a grudge.
Despite remaining in the public eye, with a high-profile gig at Essendon as senior coach, Knights avoided public comment about the incident for many years, but in an interview with The West Australian newspaper, as he embarked on his tenure as assistant coach at West Coast, Knights finally spoke, albeit briefly, on the matter.
“There’s no grudges, no issues,” he said. “The tribunal dealt with it at the time. I think he got five weeks, which back then was probably like ten weeks now.”
“I played on him a lot. He used to do his fair share of grabbing the jumper and holding, but that’s taggers and run-with players and he had a job to do. But I wouldn’t say he was a dirty player, no.”
Knights’ comments fly in the face of popular opinion, with Liberatore’s name never failing to get a rise out of Tigers supporters, who tend to use the phrase “dog act” to describe Liberatore’s actions. That Liberatore has never apologised to Knights adds fuel to the fire for them.
“The highlights still get played on YouTube and every now and again I’ll get a message from someone. No apology. I haven’t come across Tony since then. But if I did, there’s no issue with it. It’s run and won. It’s done.”
Knights got a bad wrap, post-playing career. His stint at Essendon didn’t end well… and didn’t start all that well, either, with Knights all but ending the career of Matthew Lloyd and costing him the chance at being in the 1000-goal club, but to put things behind him and move on demonstrates a high degree of class.
In a twist that brought a smile to Knights’ face when he found out, both he and Liberatore announced their retirements on the same day.
“When I found out, I had a little chuckle to myself, I guess,” said Knights. “We had some terrific duels. I wish him all the best in his endeavours.”
Maybe one day Libba will reach out and bury the hatchet, but given the way he made enemies in the later days of his career – relentless, uncompromising, remorseless, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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