Frozen in time: Alex Jesaulenko mark the enduring image of amazing 1970 Grand Final
RELIVE Alex Jesaulenko’s famous speckie and the story behind this iconic photo from possibly the greatest Grand Final of all.
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IT HAS been selected as the mark of the century and it's hard to see Alex Jesaulenko's speckie losing its mantle as the greatest in Grand Final history.
Well may commentator Michael Williamson have said "Jesaulenko – you beauty", because nothing is likely to surpass it.
Jezza’s mark will long live as the iconic image of the 1970 Grand Final which was truly a last Saturday in September for the ages.
This was the grandest of them all.
A clash between the two fiercest foes Carlton and Collingwood, it drew the biggest crowd of 121,696, saw the greatest comeback, and heralded the birth of the modern game.
Jezza’s spectacular leap over big Collingwood ruckman Graeme "Jerker" Jenkin in the second quarter was almost incidental to the action.
The four-time premiership player has played down its significance, saying he even took better marks in the same game.
"The images make it look classical, like it was taken from the marking manual,” Jesaulenko has been quoted as saying.
“It was against Collingwood, a Grand Final, the biggest crowd ever, Graeme's a six-foot-four ruckman, I guess there's a mystique in standing on top of him with your arms outstretched."
Jenkin recalled: "I remember thinking I've got to mark that ball, then I felt this thump in my back and a roar from the crowd. I remember Jezza didn't even fall over after taking it. He landed on his feet, like a ballerina.
"In a Grand Final a team is never going to play four bad quarters but I also think it was Jezza's mark that inspired the whole side.''
It was the first grab recognised officially as the Mark of the Year, an accolade which came to be awarded the Alex Jesaulenko Medal.
It has been painted on canvas, feted in verse and song, and featured as one of the famous Memorable Moments in the successful Toyota advertising campaign.
Just to add to the Jesaulenko legend, he booted three goals in the game to take his tally for the season to 115, and remains the only Carlton player to kick the ton.
BARASSI'S MASTERSTROKE
A tactical switch of genius by supercoach Ron Barassi at half-time has been hailed as the launch of the modern play-on game.
Collingwood, which had downed Carlton in three encounters during the season, looked to be heading for victory again when it jumped the Blues early.
Full-forward Peter McKenna was on fire with five goals and the Magpies led by 44 points at halftime, a lead which should have been more but for some wasteful goalkicking.
Barassi marshalled his troops and ordered them to play on at all costs, using handball as an attacking weapon.
In the pre-interchange era, he also introduced reserve Ted Hopkins for Bert Thornley when substitutions were made only for injury or when victory was in the bag.
Hopkins, an opportunistic goalsneak, ran amok booting four goals and sparked the Blues comeback.
THE DAY CARLTON BROKE COLLINGWOOD'S HEART
Story published in the Herald Sun, July 22, 1995
SEPTEMBER 26, 1970 - for the legions of Collingwood supporters a day that will forever live in infamy.
Even now they harbor bitter memories of that fateful afternoon nigh on a quarter of a century ago when their players blew a 44-point lead against Carlton in a Grand Final.
There had been other tragedies at the hand of the Blues. The 1938 grand final - Harry "Soapy" Vallence's last game for Carlton - when the Magpies lost by 15 points.
Then there was the the five-point nightmare of 1979, and two years later the 20-point capitulation after Collingwood had led by 21 points into time-on of the third quarter.
But 1970 is the one. It's the indelible scar on the hearts and minds of the Black and White Army.
Naturally the game elicits unbridled joy for Carlton people. And yet for Gilbert Thomas Thornley, Queensland commercial fisherman and key figure in Carlton's premiership of 1970, the hurt remains.
Bert Thornley is the forgotten man of the 20 that day. Tomorrow he will make the dash to Melbourne's Hilton on the Park where he will be afforded the kudos he so deserves for being part of a special moment across the road in another time.
At a $65-a-head luncheon preceding the Carlton-Collingwood round 16 encounter, most of the 20 men tried, true and blue will gather to reminisce about what happened on that hallowed turf 25 years ago.
Brent Crosswell - Carlton's best player afield in 1970 - cannot make the trip; nor can Robert Walls who is committed to coaching Brisbane. John Goold is an apology, Alex Jesaulenko is a doubftul starter, and Sergio Silvagni and Adrian Gallagher will be caught up in match-day duties with the current side.
But Ron Barassi, who from the first tier of the MCG's smokers' stand commandeered Carlton to its greatest-ever triumph in 1970, will be there to deliver the keynote address. And the then Carlton president George Harris and officiating field umpire Don Jolley, both now confined to wheelchairs, will form part of the captive 300-strong audience.
They will talk about the time a scalped $10 standing-room ticket bought you a place in the all-time record crowd of 121,696, of how it got you "Jezza's" mark, Carlton's barnstorming second-half revival and the pivotal second-half that catapulted the game itself into the modern era.
Of course, Carlton, at one stage 44 points down, got up by 10 points - 17.9 (111) to 14.17 (101) - with Ted Hopkins, who replaced Thornley at half-time, booting four second half goals to turn the game on its ear.
The 1970 Grand Final was, in fact, Hopkins' second-last game for Carlton; for Thornley his last hurrah.
And while what happened elevated the best bench-warmer in the business into sporting immortality, the pain of being replaced has not eased for Thornley. Remember those were the days of the 19th and 20th men, where once you were off, you were off.
FOR the past 20 years Thornley's energies have been channelled into commercial fishing ventures anywhere and everywehere from Mooloolaba 50km south of Noosa Heads, to Torres Strait between Cape York and Papua New Guinea.
When contacted this week, he was aboard his boat somewhere near Fraser Island off the coast of Bundaberg in northern Queensland.
Importantly, Thornley bears no malice towards the Blues. "Carlton was the greatest club I was ever associated with, without doubt, from the president down to the bootstudder," he said. "The way they handled the club and managed the players, there was never anything left to question."
But there remains a stone in his shoe.
"That (being replaced) was the one and only regret, but I was still proud to be in the original team because it's a once in a lifetime thing," Thornley said. "And Bobby Skilton, who was one of my idols back in the west, never had that privilege . . . "
Though it is universally acknowledged Barassi was breathing fire at half-time, the circumstances surrounding Thornley's demise and Hopkins' rise remain clouded.
A number of stories have abounded as to when the decision was made to replace Thornley with Hopkins. One is that Barassi, striding down the race following his vitriolic half-time address, overruled members of the match committee who wanted Thornley to be given another 10 minutes in the third term.
Barassi could not be contacted to put his case.
Hopkins maintains that soon after walking the race and into the rooms for Barassi's half-time tirade he knew his time was nigh.
But Thornley remains coy about a verbal exchange with Barassi within the sanctity of the dressing rooms.
"There were things that were said, but I'm not going to stir it up," Thornley said.
"I was never ever told what happened and naturally I was pretty disappointed, particularly in retrospect when now it's just a simple matter of interchange. And I thought I'd done my bit for the year and in the finals series.
`IT was the biggest disappointment of my career, that's for sure. But everyone must accept the fact you were part of the team."
Clearly, all Carlton players were in fear of the imminent Barassi tongue-lashing at the main break.
"There was a lot of fear and apprehension among the players going in, but I hadn't played that half so I didn't have to take the brunt and I ignored everything that had happened before," Hopkins said.
Gregarious former Carlton rover Adrian Gallagher, who that year earned the club's best and fairest award despite being sidelined because of a hamstring injury for the opening six games, took a novel approach in laying low at halftime.
"I knew he (Barassi) would be upset so I immediately went to the toilet . . . I was in the toilet hiding when Bert Thornley copped the lot," Gallagher said.
And Gallagher's recollection of Barassi's all-important half-time address was equally as vivid.
What came across in Barassi's speech, said Gallagher, was that out there was 121,000 people, it was Carlton-Collingwood, and the players were facing the very real prospect of total, lasting humiliation.
"Barassi's message was that if you get thrashed in this one you will be shamed for the rest of your life . . . it shell-shocked everyone into reality," Gallagher said.
"He then went on to say that the way we'd get back into it - not to win, but to get back into it - was to handball and take risks. At three quarter-time he's come in, deliberately I found out afterwards, and said `well done, you've gained your credibility'. And we yelled at him, saying `hang on, we're going to win this'.
That was the first time winning was mentioned, not by Barassi, but by the players.
"By then Carlton had slammed on seven goals in 10+ minutes in the third quarter. Jolley, by his own admission as "fresh as a daisy" after being confined to Collingwood's forward area in the first half, was feeling the pinch.
"I was up one end, the ball was down the other and I suddenly realised Carlton was going handball mad," Jolley said.
"I can still see Serge Silvagni with the ball at the behind post handballing . . . I said `Serge, what the bloody hell are you doing?' and he said `that's what I've been told to do and I'm doing it'."
Ross "Twiggy" Dunne, Collingwood's best player that day, conceded that what happened in 1970 took him "about 15 or 20 years to get over".
The week leading up to that match had been particularly traumatic for him. His father, Frank, had died after a short illness aged 52, with the funeral service held on the Friday before the big game.
"The players and the coaches came to the funeral, and it was probably more difficult for them than for me in trying to gee me up," Dunne said.
"But I knew my father wanted me to play, which helped me give my complete best . . . it's hard to say you played well when the side lost, but the club gave me a trophy for my efforts."
Jolley noted that this year's three Grand Final field umpires will earn $10,000 each for their efforts.
"In 1970 I got 58 bucks but brought my own gear which cost $62. I lost four dollars on the deal but I wouldn't have swapped it for anything in the world," he said.
And commentator Mike Williamson reckons Jolley did dough on the game.
"In the umpires' room there were two boundary, two goal umpires and Don Jolley . . . three barracked for Carlton and two for Collingwood, and they all had a side wager," Williamson said.
"Anyway, Don came in at half-time asking `do you want to double the bet?' . . . and here he was in the second half, watching his money go down the shoot, and unable to do anything about it."
Dunne, who these days serves Collingwood as administration manager, revealed that the vanquished Magpies of September 1970 will hold their own reunion in August, at the club, in what will undoubtedly be a low-key affair.
`WE'LL be editing all highlights of the game, and we'll all blame each other," he said.
But at the Hilton tomorrow the talk will be lively, stories will be debunked and/or embellished, and legends and myths enhanced.
However, Hopkins probably had the 1970 Grand Final in its true perspective when he said: "What turned the game was desperation, a bit of risk and the ability to get the ball moving".
"It's folklore, this game. It's place in folklore is that it's helped tell the story of modern footy, and people now believe modern footy was born in the 1970 Grand Final," he said.
"But to say modern footy materialised on that one afternoon is drawing a pretty long bow."
SCOREBOARD
Carlton 0.3 4.5 12.5 17.9 (111)
Collingwood 4.8 10.13 13.16 14.17 (101)
BEST
Carlton: Jesaulenko, Crosswell, McKay, Silvagni, Robertson, Hopkins.
Collingwood: Dunne, Price, Tuddenham, McKenna, W.Richardson, Greening.
GOALS
Carlton: Hopkins 4, Jesaulenko 3, Crosswell 2, Gallagher 2, Nicholls 2, Walls 2, Jackson, Silvagni.
Collingwood: McKenna 6, Dunne 2, Thompson 2, Tuddenham 2, Britt, W.Richardson.
Umpire: D.Jolley
Crowd: 121,696.
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