Days like this make me happy.
Yeah, plenty of you may be suffering the effects of New Year’s Eve, but I spent it a little more casually, and by that, I was with most of my family, and as they played and did whatever they do. Meanwhile, I watched something I’d never seen before.
Moulin Rouge.
Just kidding – no chance I’d ever watch that crap.
No, instead of drinking and partying, I got to enjoy a taste of yesteryear in the form of a game from 1977, captured and released by the son of the great man, himself, Rhett Bartlett.
For those who are not yet aware, Rhett has been compiling quite a list of forgotten AFL and VFL archives on his youtube channel, and if you love your footy history, it’s well worth the time to sift through.
His latest addition was a full game from Round 22, 1977, pitting the Tigers against the Saints.
Coming into watching this, I was genuinely excited, mainly due to it being a bit of a footy history lesson, for me. You see, I was a toddler at this time, and have no recollection of footy at this time.
I do, however, have a knowledge of the players who competed in that game, and where they went from there.
There was Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale, who was playing his last game, Kevin Bartlett, prowling around the forward line as well as the middle in a year he would finish second in the Brownlow. We had a young Trevor Barker in defence for the Saints, a marauding Carl Ditterich looking as physically imposing as ever, and a couple of back pockets for the Tigers that would go onto have glittering coaching careers, Kevin Sheedy and Mick Malthouse.
If you have only been exposed to the game in the last 20 years, there are aspects of this contest that would look completely foreign to you. Two players kicked dropkicks during the contest. There were so many attempted barrels, as the torpedo was commonly used to get maximum distance, and despite far less tackling, there was a definite physicality to the game that is no longer seen. Not sniping, but a lot of players willing to throw their body into the path of an opposition player with the intent to stop them in their tracks.
Anyway, time to focus on some of the ins and outs of what was a well-spent two hours on New Years Eve.
THE GAME, ITSELF
The Saints were in this up to their eyeballs for two and a half quarters, and it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to understand why they fell away.
The Tigers were just fitter.
Tom Hafey had moved on, and was now in charge of Collingwood, but his maniacal drive for players to be fit was evident in the way the Tigers played the game. New coach, Barry Richardson, had listed Richmond to the cusp of finals, but they needed to knock over the Saints in order to make it.
And for a while, this was in question.
However, without talking down about these players, as they were both toward the tail end of their careers, a quick look at the body shape of Cowboy Neale and Rex Hunt tells you most of what you needed to know. At this stage, both fellas were as big around the waits as they were across the shoulders, and whilst Richmond continued to run, the Saints, in general, started to go up and down on the one spot.
After the Saints slammed on 13 goals in the opening half, they managed just four after the main break. The Tigers, trailing by two goals at halftime, kicked 14 in the second half to run away with it.
THE STARS
KEVIN BARTLETT
This could have been a huge one for KB.
As it stands, it was still pretty bloody amazing, and statistically, one of his best ever outings.
How many players have ever kicked five goals whilst going over 30 disposals in a game?
You can read up on it HERE.
However, this was one of the four occasions Bartlett managed it.
With 33 touches and five snags, KB had the type of game where he could have made things much worse for the Saints. He missed a couple of goals that he would normally gobble up, but his work around the ground was exceptional. I’d go so far to say he was the fittest bloke out there at this stage of his career.
He gathered the footy in the middle (five clearances) and read the ball well when drifting back in defence, as well (four intercepts), as he continually managed to find space as he flittered between his dual roles, leaving his direct midfield opponent, Rod Hughes, confused as to whether to go with him , or hand over to a defender.
This left Bartlett in space far too often – something Saints coach, Ross Smith, had no answer for.
NEVILLE ROBERTS
This was Roberts’ last home and away game.
He went on to play two finals for the Tigers in ‘77, but watching him in this game, it felt as though he was the most impactful player on the park.
But for some poor kicking at goal, he could have had eight or nine to his name from half-forward. Instead, he managed 5.4 from 22 touches, and looked a cut above the rest out there, particularly in the first quarter, when he kept the Tigers in it.
He had clean hands, looked to play on quickly, and also managed four contested grabs for the game.
Looking back over his career on afltables, this is one of his best games in the VFL, and it comes as no surprise that he would go on to kick over 100 goals for Norwood later in his career. Great hands, found space all the time, and loved a shot at goal.
PAUL CALLERY
Here is where I started to learn a thing or two – it’s why I love looking at these older games.
If you’d ask me before I commenced watching, who Paul Callery was, I would have just stared blankly, like I do when my wife asks me to get something out of the fridge and I a) have no idea what she is talking about, and b) wouldn’t even know it if it attacked me and laid eggs on my face.
Ask me now, and I would have a much better appreciation.
Callery was everywhere, notching five of his game-high eight clearances in the first half. He was the engine room for the Saints, as he sharked taps, hit the contest at pace, and gave the St Kilda forward plenty of chances as he darted away and kicked long.
Amazingly, he was shafted to half-forward in the second half, which really impacted the Saints’ momentum. Without Callery to drive them out of the guts, they started to be soundly beaten at the stoppages. And as the outside runners got to work, with Bruce Monteath and, later, Kevin Sheedy, finding the footy at clearances, by the time he was re-inserted, it was too late.
JIM JESS
I won’t bore you, here – more on Jess in the next section.
THE DUEL
JIM JESS VERSUS VAL PEROVIC
When I started watching this one, I have to admit, I was disappointed to see Jess lining up as centre-half-forward.
You see, just a few weeks back, I watched an old pre-season game pitting the Tigers against Port Adelaide from the early 80s, and Jess owned the half-back line. I was interested to see how many of his 13 marks in this contest would end up being intercepts, had he played the same role.
So, his deployment at half-forward dashed my hopes… but I was far from disappointed with wat I saw from him.
As a long-leading half-forward, Jess took Val Perovic to school at points. Big Val was in the stage of his carer before Carlton fans anointed him with the “woof” every time he kicked it, and in this game, he was responsible for limiting Jess.
It worked for the majority of the first quarter, but after that, Jess got on his bike, and his ability to recover once the footy hit the deck was too much for big Val to contend with.
Jess ended up with 21 disposals and 13 marks as he led up through the middle and into the wings. He took four contested grabs, kicked a goal, himself, and added two direct goal assists to his afternoon’s work.
Opposite him, Perovic had ten touches, but just three of them were counter as intercepts.
INCIDENTS
PEROVIC TAKES OUT KB
This may have been the point that the match turned.
A centering kick into the corridor looked to find a wide-open Kevin Bartlett in the third quarter. As KB stretched to take the mark, Val Perovic arrived on the scene and collected the little man with a solid shoulder.
KB went down hard, sparking a heated few moments between the teams.
Without the benefit of replay, the benefit of the doubt immediately went to the bloke who did the hitting. It was such a stark contrast to hear the commentators immediately conclude that the blood streaming from KB’s nose was due to his impact with the ground, rather than Perovic’s hit. These days, the commentators would be immediately speculating how many weeks Perovic would receive.
It was kind of like having Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura commentating the action using Doug Wade’s voice.
Anyway, Bartlett showed a lot of guts, picking himself up to go back and take his kick (no way he would have been permitted in the modern game – concussion AND blood). He slotted it, and moments later, ran onto the loose ball out of the back of the pack to kick his second in a minute.
It was also interesting to hear the commentators speculate that the umpiring would swing in Richmond’s favour after the incident, which is actually did for a couple of minutes, as though they knew it was the fair price to pay for Perovic’s actions.
From that point on, it was all Richmond.
These types of actions can really go either way. Sometimes, it is the offending team that is buoyed by someone showing a heap of mongrel, but in this case, the Tigers were on the upswing, and it just seemed to accelerate their dominance.
SOME OF THE BIGGER NAMES
CARL DITTERICH
It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure watching Carl Ditterich play footy. To say he is a contact-first type of player would be some kind of understatement.
He had a period in the second quarter where his influence was huge – kicked a couple of goals, and manufactured another via attacking the contest like he hated it.
I tried to explain to the missus about the way this bloke played. If the ball was one point of a triangle, and Ditterich and the opposition were equal distance apart, the triangle would be an equilateral triangle (Year Eight Geometry for the win!). You expect both players to go for the footy.
But Carl… no. He cuts the angle of the triangle to hit the body of the opposition before he gets to the footy, and he does it about five times in this game, often allowing a teammate to come in and collect it, instead. Also, it was as though his teammates knew this was his role, so even when they were third to the footy, Ditterich would clear the way for them. You don’t see that, anymore.
I know his name is mud these days, and his rep as a player was not great, but he sure is fun to watch.
KEVIN SHEEDY
Had the most intercepts of any player on the ground, with 12, including three intercept grabs. That said, they came in spurts (tee hee), so there were long periods where he wasn’t involved.
He was moved into the guts in the second half, where he quickly generated three clearances amid the Richmond avalanche.
TREVOR BARKER
A strange game for Barks. Played very deep in defence and had seven intercepts, but was basically unseen for the entire first quarter, and didn’t have much of an impact on the game. Spilt plenty of contests (I estimate he had five or six clean spoils) but as he was playing so close to goal, he didn’t generate too much offence.
MICK MALTHOUSE
Started strongly, with five of his seen intercepts coming in the first half. Ran forward and snagged a goal in the second half, but his influence was all in the first half.
FRANCIS BOURKE
Probably the opposite of Malthouse. Not really too involved in the first half, but was far more prominent after halftime, as he collected most of his 18 touches and six intercepts.
COWBOY NEALE
This was Neale’s last game, and it looked it.
At this stage, his role was to play deep in defence and prevent any contested grabs close to goal, and he did that, but his kicking let the team down. The league was still at the stage where the full back takes the kick ins, and that was Neale’s role… but he butchered it on several occasions, two of which led to Richmond goals.
On a positive note, he showed a lot of heart chasing down KB when the little man tried to put a move on him later in the game.
OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST
People not familiar with this era will immediately notice players (Bartlett, Monteath) throwing the footy out in front of them as they’re about to be tackled. KB was a master at it, but it was a great rule change, as it was just a tactic to extract holding the man free kicks.
Peter Loughlin kicked six in this one for the Tigers. This was only his second league game, and the best of his career. By the end of the 1980 season, he was gone.
Bryan Wood is a maestro. I’ve watched a few early (for me) Tigers games, and he is always constructive with the footy. When the Tigers got up and going, he was one of the players that led them. He finished with three direct goal assists amongst his 23 touches, including one where he took five bounces down the wing before spotting up David Cloke. Classy player.
Speaking of Cloke, he took three contested grabs in this one. Always such a hard bloke to match up on, this fella. Size, and surprising mobility for a man of his stature.
Ian Baker was one of the best for the Saints. Had nine intercepts amongst his 16 disposals off half-back.
Rex Hunt was one of those players who looked really comfortable with a field kick, but lost the plot when kicking at goal. A couple of his efforts… horrible. Happens to some great players… it’s like everything changes when the sticks are in front of them.
Most intercept marks on the park were split in this game, with Trevor Barker, and Merv Keane notching five apiece.
We’re three years away from the 1980 Tigr flag, here, but far out, you can see the pieces in place. Geoff Raines on the wing was good in this game, but his hair looked Un-Raines-Like. Glad he fixed it up in time for his premiership photos. Emmett Dunne in defence, Monteath in the guts, KB and Francis Bourke… the pieces are all there.
And lastly, John Pitura looked like a million bucks in this game. 23 touches and three goals is one thing, but his balance and composure was a standout. Being the only bloke in long sleeves probably helped that a little, as well, I admit.
And that’s about that. Great way to spend two hours if you’re a footy head with a bit of a thing for history.
Again, massive thanks to Rhett Bartlett for his ongoing work to preserve the history of the game. For blokes like me, who try not to comment on players I haven’t seen, getting to watch games like this is like a treasure trove.
You can follow Rhett on his X account.
And his YouTube account is a belter, as well.
He’s a gun.
As always, massive thanks to those who support this work. It is a labour of love for me, and having you guys as members of the site basically keeps me going. So sincerely… thank you – HB
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