The Tackle: Malcolm Blight and the finals moments that turn men into legends
Matthew Scarlett’s toepoke. Dale Morris’ tackle. Leo Barry’s mark. Finals footy is made for those who relish the big moments. Mark Robinson chats to Malcolm Blight about what it takes to define a finals series. THE TACKLE.
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Football is an avalanche of moments — marks, tackles, smothers, goals.
The grandest moments deliver inspiration, triumph and fame.
We love footy because moments become memories, and memories are forever.
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Malcolm Blight delivered, coached and was witness to many such moments.
He has two favourites. One is Alex Jesaulenko’s mark in the 1970 Grand Final.
“Every time you see it you smile, because it’s the most joyous part of the game, in my eyes, anyhow,’’ Blight said.
The other is Geelong fullback Matty Scarlett’s pivotal toe-poke in the 2009 Grand Final against St Kilda.
“That’s the biggest contrast in the game, don’t you think, the mark and a toe-poke?’’ Blight said.
“They epitomise what can happen and what can be a big moment. You think, bloody hell, what about that?’’
His nominations are separated by 39 years, but Blight speaks as if he saw them for the first time yesterday, such is the animation in his voice.
This month someone else will etch themselves in footy folklore.
It might be in a cutthroat preliminary final, or with five minutes to play in the Grand Final, but someone, somehow, will make a play that becomes famous.
Words can’t describe how much this man means to me. I’ve never met someone who’s so driven by giving to others and so passionate about playing the game to make it easier for his mates. I thought I’d share a story to show just how selfless Moz consistently was. https://t.co/XKdYCfRozc
— Easton Wood (@easton_wood) August 30, 2019
Dale Morris retired last week. Plenty was said about the Bulldogs backman — I read a beautiful story told by Easton Wood on Twitter — but nothing said or written better represents Morris than Morris’s actions.
Brave. Selfless. Driven. He’s all of that.
But what about THAT tackle.
With a broken bone in his back, Morris chased down Sydney’s Lance Franklin and took him to the ground.
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The ball fell to Tom Boyd, who kicked a goal from 60m — and the famous premiership of 2016 was won.
Finals are full of such moments.
Everyone remembers Franklin at Hawthorn kicking seven goals against Adelaide in the 2007 elimination final. And how about Luke Hodge in the same game, willing his battered body to contest after contest?
Hodge staked his legend early.
Finals history is full of these kind of moments.
What about Leo Barry’s mark for Sydney in 2005?
Aker’s left-foot snap goal for Brisbane Lions in 2002?
Carlton’s Wayne Harmes swiping the ball from the boundary line to the goalsquare in 1979?
Shane Ellen’s five goals for Adelaide in 1997?
Billy Brownless becoming the “king of Geelong” after winning the 1994 qualifying final against the Bulldogs with a goal after the siren?
Darren Jarman’s Grand Finals for Adelaide in 1997 and 1998?
Leon Baker’s last quarter for Essendon in the 1984 Grand Final?
All of the 1989 classic?
Last week Gavin Wanganeen spoke of Shaun Burgoyne’s tackle on St Kilda’s Brent Guerra in the dying minutes of the 2004 preliminary final.
If Burgoyne missed Guerra, Port Adelaide lost. He didn’t, and Port went on to win its first flag the next week against Brisbane Lions.
And there was Burgoyne’s colossal final quarter for Hawthorn in the 2013 preliminary final against Geelong, after the Hawks trailed by 20 points at three-quarter time.
He kicked the goal that put the Hawks ahead. They won by five points.
Hawthorn had lost by 10 points to Sydney in the Grand Final the year before and to Collingwood in the preliminary final by three points in 2011. It was staring at three heartbreaks in a row before Burgoyne’s heroics.
That quarter changed the future for the Hawks, who then won three flags in a row.
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There was Ben Stratton’s tackle on Patrick Dangerfield in the final quarter of the 2013 preliminary final.
One out, back flank, and he nailed the surging Dangerfield. The ball went to the other end, Cyril Rioli kicked the goal and the Hawks ended up beating Adelaide by five points.
That tackle mattered.
And there was Dustin Martin and Tom Stewart on the flank at the MCG in the 2017 qualifying final. Dusty wins the ball in a one-on-one contest, which leads to Dion Prestia’s goal just before three-quarter time. It was heartbreak for the Cats and so nonchalant from the Tigers champ.
Of course, there was also last season’s stunning Eagles sequence: Jeremy McGovern’s mark. Nathan Vardy’s mark. Liam Ryan’s mark. And then Dom Sheed’s winning goal from the tight angle.
If McGovern misjudges his interception, Jordan De Goey swoops and Collingwood wins the premiership. Another moment for the ages.
September is a crazy, exciting, feverish month of football.
Who has tickets?
Who is organising parties at home to watch the games?
Who is keen to watch Any Given Sunday again.
“The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second. You find out that life is just a game of inches. And so is football,’’ Al Pacino’s character says in the film.
BLIGHTY’S BIG GAME STORIES
Blight is a storyteller. He played in two premierships (North Melbourne), coached two others (Adelaide) and lost three Grand Finals (Geelong).
He knows about the game of inches, and seeking the big moments.
When coaching finals teams, Blight always spoke to the players individually and collectively, but before the 1997 Grand Final he added a new tactic.
He instructed captain Mark Bickley to ask the Crows to look up at the coach’s box before they left for their positions and make a gesture — a thumbs-up, or a wave.
“I hadn’t done it before, but it was something I thought of,’’ Blight said.
“At Geelong I talked to the players as Ron Barassi had talked to me, but sometimes you actually start to look around. In that last moment — and does it work, did it win the game? Of course not — but what it does is every person who put their hands up would’ve had a thought about something they knew they could do, had done well or about to do well. It was a reflection moment.’’
Players would fall short as they searched for their moment, he said.
“Players’ mistakes are probably overlooked 95 per cent of the time in Grand Finals because it’s so quick, too much is happening,’’ Blight said.
“It’s a game of forgiveness, coaching. As a player, you get very dark on yourself. Ask any player that makes a blue.
“You’ve got say, ‘Hey, that’s awful, but let’s keep going now’. Otherwise blokes just go into their shells.
“Somewhere along the line, you’ve got to go chase the footy again, or an opponent.’’
Asked to describe finals football, Blight chose a story.
He was in the rooms at Waverley Park after Geelong defeated St Kilda by seven points in the 1991 elimination final. Tony Lockett kicked 9.5 for the Saints and Billy Brownless 8.3 for the Cats.
“They went berserk. It was a great game of footy,’’ Blight said.
Blight was standing with his match committee in the Geelong rooms when Saints coach Ken Sheldon walked in.
“We started to talk about the game and I said, ‘You were a bit stiff’,’’ Blight said.
“Kenny said, ‘Blighty, one thing I’ve learnt about this game is when the word finals appears, that means final’, and of course that means there’s a lot more on it.
“It was a simple statement. but yeah, it’s a final. The game doesn’t change, there’s four sticks at the ends, there’s green stuff in the middle, the umpire blows the whistle, but because the end result is final, it conjures up all these thoughts in your mind.’’
STARS MUST PERFORM ON BIG STAGE
Blight was a supremely gifted player, one of those who teammates expected to deliver big moments on the big stage.
Ditto Leigh Matthews.
Asked on AFL 360 last week who he thought needed to play well for a team to win, the stars or the role players, Matthews answered: “Both.”
But he quickly added: “You need your good players to play well.’’
Blight chuckled at Lethal’s answer because he reckons he and Matthews often thought alike.
“There is absolutely no doubt. If your good ones don’t play well, you won’t win,’’ Blight said.
“You need your guns.
“The teams I coached at Geelong were analysed by all and sundry 15 years later about why we lost.
“It was the opinion that the blokes down the bottom were nowhere near as good as (their counterparts in) the Hawthorn team or the West Coast team.
“That’s true. But I guarantee you something, the good ones didn’t play well enough.’’
He mentioned the determination of Geelong pair Joel Selwood and Jimmy Bartel in the 2009 Grand Final.
“Bartel and Selwood willed the ball along the boundary line and I think Bartel kicked the goal,” Blight said.
“It was an amazing three minutes. The two of them just smashed in.
“I remember it vividly and eventually they got a goal.
“That was the two guns being guns.’’
The present-day stars — Dangerfield, Selwood, Martin, Luke Shuey, Josh Kennedy, Lachie Neale, Jeremy Cameron, Scott Pendlebury, De Goey, Josh Kelly, Lachie Whitfield, Jack Riewoldt, Dyson Heppell, Marcus Bontempelli and Jackson Macrae — will carry all sorts of pressure.
Some have done it before in finals. Others are getting their first opportunities.
“You desperately want to play well,’’ Blight said.
“It’s not quite another game, but in general terms once you get going in a game, the game flows and you flow with it.’’
How about Blight’s personal moments?
He played in 22 finals, was best afield in five of them, was among the best in another five, probably broke even in five more, lowered his colours in the other five and put in two shockers.
Blight was a Coleman medallist, a Brownlow medallist, a Magarey medallist and is a Legend of the AFL Hall of Fame.
He’s largely remembered now, he believes, for one moment that wasn’t in a final.
“You want to get hold of a bloke who kicked a goal after the siren at Princes Park one day, from a 75m torpedo kick,’’ hes aid, chuckling about his famous roost in 1976 that is part of footy folklore.
“Get on to that bloke and ask him how many times he’s been asked about it and how many times the story has been written about in the last 40 years … it’s amazing.
“If you’ve only ever done one thing in football, you can still be famous.’’
Originally published as The Tackle: Malcolm Blight and the finals moments that turn men into legends