Bill Brownless recalls Malcolm Blight’s strangest tactics as Geelong coach

Adelaide’s power stance in the 2017 Grand Final was odd, but not half as bizarre as a move Malcolm Blight pulled as Geelong coach against the Crows in the 1990s. Bill Brownless retells one of footy’s strangest stories.

Geelong footballers standing in line as Adelaide Crows players make their way onto the ground in 1994.

Was this the inspiration for Adelaide’s power stance before the 2017 Grand Final?

The Crows were on the receiving end of an even stranger tactic two decades earlier when the powerful Geelong side played an away game in South Australia under master coach Malcolm Blight.

Blight was known for his attacking style, winning record — and his original ideas.

“He was eccentric and out there and weird and different, but he could coach,” former Cats goalkicker Bill Brownless recalled this week.

Football Park, then Adelaide’s home ground, was sold out for Geelong’s visit in 1994, and Blight had something special in mind to get inside the heads of the opposition

“Malcolm had worked this out, he got us to form a guard of honour outside the Adelaide race.

Ten Geelong players this side of the Adelaide race, ten Geelong players (the other) side of the Adelaide race,” Brownless said.

“(It) was reverse psychology — this is how he thought, Malcolm, that we would clap them onto their home ground.”

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Geelong players including Bill Brownless (right) form a guard of honour for Adelaide before a game against the Crows in 1994.

“Finally the Adelaide Crows run through the guard of honour, we clap them on and they were all looking at us thinking, ‘What are blokes doing?’. We weren’t sure, to be honest.”

So the question is — did it work?

“They do their warm-up, we break away from our guard of honour and … we kicked the first two goals of the game. Blighty, how good’s this? Reverse psychology, it’s working!

“We got beaten by 17 goals that day, and did we cop it.”

Speaking as part of a new Thirsty for a Good Story series sponsored by Thirsty Camel, Brownless also recalled an equally bizarre pre-match Blight rev-up before a clash against Richmond — that had similar results.

Players arrived in the rooms for a home game at Kardinia Park to be told to grab their towels and follow the coach out of the ground and on to a waiting bus that took them to a fan’s house about 2km away.

Malcolm Blight tries to get his point across.

Brownless expected to be asked to dive into this supporter’s swimming pool, but instead Blight crammed the team into a room “and he makes is sit in a circle with our towels, we had to put them on our heads, and we were Indians going out to battle against the cowboys — Richmond — and this was the powwow before the battle.”

To complete the ritual, Blight pulled out an imaginary peace pipe and passed it around.

“We all have a puff of the peace pipe, and we get back on the bus and we go to Kardinia Park — and Richmond beat us by six goals.

“Richmond never beat us back then, we used to thrash them.

“When he leaves this world, we’ll cut his head open and have a look at the brain because I don’t know what’s in there.”

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Originally published as Bill Brownless recalls Malcolm Blight’s strangest tactics as Geelong coach