1965 Grand Final
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:52 am
It's only October and already I'm missing my footy. So I went around to the local library the other day, saw they had two DVDs of Essendon Premierships - 1965 and 1993. 1993 was great, of course, but I remember it well and didn't really want to see it again for the moment. I borrowed 1965 because I had never seen it before and thought it might be interesting to see how the game was played in the "old days".
I started going to the footy as a little tacker in 1969, so some of the 1965 Premiership players like Barry Davis, Don McKenzie, Daryl Gerlach, Charlie Payne etc were familiar to me. Others such as Ken Fraser, Alec Epis, Ted Fordham etc I knew only by name and reputation, as they had already retired by 1969.
So my impressions after watching the game:
(1) Compared with today's players, they mostly looked skinny. Perhaps the black & white image distorted things a bit, or maybe they really were less muscled then because they weren't full time professional players who had the time to spend hours and hours in the gym?
(2) There were LOTS of contested marks. Real pity this is fast disappearing out of our game. It used to be one of the key features that made us different from rugby or basketball (both of which we are starting to look a lot more like than ever before, with lots of packs/scrums and lots of chipping it around).
(3) Lots of torps and drop kicks. Although they were beautiful to watch when they came off, it was amazing how many times they did NOT come off. Even the best players frequently kicked grubbers (remember what they were? ones that dribbled along the ground) or ones that flew off the side of the boot and went WAY out of bounds right up into the crowd. In that sense, the skills are a lot better now. Even someone whose skills we bag (like Stanton) hits the target far more often than most of these 1965 blokes did.
(4) Lots of kicking off the ground. This one took me a bit by surprise. I remembered torps & drop kicks, but I had really forgotten how often they just booted it off the ground too. These days this is hardly ever used unless it is a very wet day. We seem to have an obsession now with bending over and picking it up, which, when you think about it, actually slows the game down and leads to a much higher possibility of being tackled/caught.
(5) Although the game was undoubtedly slower then, with a lot more stop/start, go back and take your kick stuff, I was surprised to see that at least a few times handball was used to a running player. I thought footy mythology told us that Barassi invented this at half time in the 1970 GF, but obviously in a small way at least this was already happening five years before that.
(6) Our talls were a very important part of that team - Fraser, Samson, McKenzie and Fordham (7 goals!). The zippy little blokes like Birt and Mitchell weren't bad either.
(7) Coleman of course had been a star player. But he was also no slouch as a coach. He very quickly shifted Prior on to their most dangerous player (Baldock), once it was obvious after a few contests that Shelton (who had a bit of a stinker that day) was being beaten. Some of our modern day coaches, whilst obsessed with "rotations" on and off the bench endlessly (a luxury they didn't have then), could learn a thing or two about positional moves and strategy from the olden day coaches.
(8) Barry Davis could certainly play. No wonder he ended up being a premiership player at North. Can't quite understand why he was such a dud coach when he came back to us. Maybe he just didn't have the cattle.
(9) Alec Epis reminded me slightly of Henry Slattery. Tough, hard at it, but gave away lots of stupid frees.
(10) We were the more experienced side, having won in 1962. St Kilda were more the up and coming young side, who went on to win the next year. Experience was probably the main thing that got us over the line on the day. On the other hand, by the end of the sixties we were really ageing and didn't recruit much in the next bunch of players, hence the lack of success in the 1970s.
(11) No out of bounds on the full rule. I had forgotten about this one. So players often looked up field, saw no-one to kick it to, and so just booted the hell out of it into the crowd. That way they gained some territory (but I suppose it only worked as a tactic if you were sure your ruck/rover combination could get it at the resulting throw in). Now we not only have an out on the full rule, but the deliberate out of bounds thing as well. So now that defensive tactic has been totally eliminated from our game. Not sure that this is a good thing.
(12) No interchange. This made a huge difference. If a player copped a knock and went down, unless it was really obviously bad (e.g. broken leg), the trainers gave them a rub, the coach moved them to the forward pocket and propped them up there for a while. In that sense, the players had to be tougher than now and play on with injuries. No chance to come off for a rest/ice/injection etc.
(13) Only one umpire. Jeff Crouch. Very ordinary. Lots of decisions which (even allowing for the different rules then) were just plain wrong. Some went our way, some went theirs.
(14) Ditterich for them and Epis for us were both hot heads, frequently giving away frees for head high tackles and the like, but overall it was a very clean game. No biffo.
Anyway, thought this might be of interest to older BTers like me to reminisce about the past and maybe also to younger ones who have no idea what the game was like way back then. Cheers.
I started going to the footy as a little tacker in 1969, so some of the 1965 Premiership players like Barry Davis, Don McKenzie, Daryl Gerlach, Charlie Payne etc were familiar to me. Others such as Ken Fraser, Alec Epis, Ted Fordham etc I knew only by name and reputation, as they had already retired by 1969.
So my impressions after watching the game:
(1) Compared with today's players, they mostly looked skinny. Perhaps the black & white image distorted things a bit, or maybe they really were less muscled then because they weren't full time professional players who had the time to spend hours and hours in the gym?
(2) There were LOTS of contested marks. Real pity this is fast disappearing out of our game. It used to be one of the key features that made us different from rugby or basketball (both of which we are starting to look a lot more like than ever before, with lots of packs/scrums and lots of chipping it around).
(3) Lots of torps and drop kicks. Although they were beautiful to watch when they came off, it was amazing how many times they did NOT come off. Even the best players frequently kicked grubbers (remember what they were? ones that dribbled along the ground) or ones that flew off the side of the boot and went WAY out of bounds right up into the crowd. In that sense, the skills are a lot better now. Even someone whose skills we bag (like Stanton) hits the target far more often than most of these 1965 blokes did.
(4) Lots of kicking off the ground. This one took me a bit by surprise. I remembered torps & drop kicks, but I had really forgotten how often they just booted it off the ground too. These days this is hardly ever used unless it is a very wet day. We seem to have an obsession now with bending over and picking it up, which, when you think about it, actually slows the game down and leads to a much higher possibility of being tackled/caught.
(5) Although the game was undoubtedly slower then, with a lot more stop/start, go back and take your kick stuff, I was surprised to see that at least a few times handball was used to a running player. I thought footy mythology told us that Barassi invented this at half time in the 1970 GF, but obviously in a small way at least this was already happening five years before that.
(6) Our talls were a very important part of that team - Fraser, Samson, McKenzie and Fordham (7 goals!). The zippy little blokes like Birt and Mitchell weren't bad either.
(7) Coleman of course had been a star player. But he was also no slouch as a coach. He very quickly shifted Prior on to their most dangerous player (Baldock), once it was obvious after a few contests that Shelton (who had a bit of a stinker that day) was being beaten. Some of our modern day coaches, whilst obsessed with "rotations" on and off the bench endlessly (a luxury they didn't have then), could learn a thing or two about positional moves and strategy from the olden day coaches.
(8) Barry Davis could certainly play. No wonder he ended up being a premiership player at North. Can't quite understand why he was such a dud coach when he came back to us. Maybe he just didn't have the cattle.
(9) Alec Epis reminded me slightly of Henry Slattery. Tough, hard at it, but gave away lots of stupid frees.
(10) We were the more experienced side, having won in 1962. St Kilda were more the up and coming young side, who went on to win the next year. Experience was probably the main thing that got us over the line on the day. On the other hand, by the end of the sixties we were really ageing and didn't recruit much in the next bunch of players, hence the lack of success in the 1970s.
(11) No out of bounds on the full rule. I had forgotten about this one. So players often looked up field, saw no-one to kick it to, and so just booted the hell out of it into the crowd. That way they gained some territory (but I suppose it only worked as a tactic if you were sure your ruck/rover combination could get it at the resulting throw in). Now we not only have an out on the full rule, but the deliberate out of bounds thing as well. So now that defensive tactic has been totally eliminated from our game. Not sure that this is a good thing.
(12) No interchange. This made a huge difference. If a player copped a knock and went down, unless it was really obviously bad (e.g. broken leg), the trainers gave them a rub, the coach moved them to the forward pocket and propped them up there for a while. In that sense, the players had to be tougher than now and play on with injuries. No chance to come off for a rest/ice/injection etc.
(13) Only one umpire. Jeff Crouch. Very ordinary. Lots of decisions which (even allowing for the different rules then) were just plain wrong. Some went our way, some went theirs.
(14) Ditterich for them and Epis for us were both hot heads, frequently giving away frees for head high tackles and the like, but overall it was a very clean game. No biffo.
Anyway, thought this might be of interest to older BTers like me to reminisce about the past and maybe also to younger ones who have no idea what the game was like way back then. Cheers.
Incredible.