It might be 30 years since the infamous 1989 Grand Final, but it’s still the match many believe is the greatest of all time. Glenn McFarlane looks back at the brutal opening minutes that sparked the carnage.
It’s moments before Hawthorn runs out for the 1989 Grand Final showdown with Geelong when an edgy Allan Jeans spies a fired-up Dermott Brereton.
The Hawks coach has one final message for his combative superstar.
Long-time trainer John ‘Killer’ Kilpatrick is close enough to hear Jeans’ last-second instructions above the cacophony of noise in the rooms.
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“Yabby comes up to Dermott right beside me and says, ‘I am telling you son, don’t get into any trouble at the first bounce’,” Kilpatrick recalls, 30 years on.
The tension is palpable for both teams; the pressure affixed for different reasons.
The Hawks are chasing back-to-back flags for the first time in the club’s history.
The Cats are in a Grand Final for the first time in 22 years, in Malcolm Blight’s maiden season as coach.
The word is out — and it has reached Blight and the Cats — that Brereton might run in off the square to target one of Geelong’s midfielders, mostly likely Brownlow medallist Paul Couch.
The Cats are planning a pre-emptive strike.
“I thought he would … yeah I did,” Blight tells the Sunday Herald Sun about whether he believed Brereton would target Couch.
“Everyone knew Paul played defensive mid, that was the way we used to set up. Paul liked to play there and I liked him to play there.
“I thought he was a sitting target for Dermott coming off the back of the square.”
The Cats’ plan forms part of a team meeting at Kardinia Park at around 3pm on Grand Final Eve, so the players know what is likely to happen next.
Geelong forward Barry Stoneham details: “We knew it was going to happen. It had been spoken about all week.”
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Out on the ground, as the final pre-game seconds tick, Brereton strides around ominously at centre half-forward. Confident, almost cocky.
Most eyes are trained on him and on Geelong’s danger man Gary Ablett at the other end of the field.
Then, the attention swings back to the bounce of the ball. Few have noticed what’s happening on the wing.
When the ball rises from the bounce, a figure in a Geelong jumper charges through the centre square. He doesn’t run towards the contest. He runs past the ball in the direction of Hawthorn’s forward line.
It’s Mark Yeates. He’s got teammates he wants to protect. He’s got an old score to settle.
He’s known about his opening-bounce role for most of the week, which has caused a few sleepless nights, but hasn’t even told his wife, Tracey, about it.
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He’s making a beeline for Brereton. The Cats’ insurance policy is about to be enacted.
Legendary sports journalist Trevor Grant will later quote Yeates as saying it was like “an old Holden ute running into a Mercedes … the damage is pretty costly”.
As planned, Yeates crunches into Brereton with brute force. The collision knocks the unsuspecting Hawk off his feet.
Few notice the bump at first as the ball sweeps in the opposite direction with an Andrew Bews kick into attack landing in the arms of Ablett in front of Scott Maginness.
But just as the Cats superstar is lining up for goal, the predicted pre-game chaos is a reality.
Brereton is down.
Jeans is up in the coaches’ box, instantly chasing information about his star’s condition. He looks in a panic, but runner George Stone insists he was still calm.
In the other box, Blight watches on as Ablett kicks the first of an incredible 42 collective goals for the day.
He recalls: “The other thing I said to ‘Yeatesy’ was if you use an elbow or a fist, I will take you off — and you won’t play again.”
“It was only ever going to be what Dermott did, and that was to use your body, use your hip, or use your shoulder.”
‘GEE, THIS IS ON’
A handful of Hawks medical staff attend Brereton — who is first down on his haunches, then lying prostrate on the ground. Club doctor Terry Gay, Kilpatrick, physio Barry Gavin and runner George Stone are experienced campaigners, and know their tasks.
Gay, who played 65 games with the club from 1965-70, hadn’t even had time to sit down on the bench when Brereton is crunched.
He’s about to have one of the busiest days.
“Just when I was about to sit down on the bench, everything broke loose,” Gay recalls.
“He (Brereton) was as white as a sheet.
“He was perspiring and was sucking in air. He was trying to control the pain. He wouldn’t go off. He wasn’t even going to discuss it.”
Stone recalls: “The first couple of minutes were amazing … it was complete chaos.
“When we got to Dermott, he was gone … I thought ‘Jesus, he’s in real trouble here’.
“Terry Gay and the trainers were there, and they wanted to get him off. He wouldn't come off.”
It is only after Ablett’s goal that Maginness looks further up the field to see his teammate in trouble — “I see Dermott laying on the ground and the trainers all around him, I thought ‘Gee, this is on’.
“He (Brereton) was our life source. He was our strength. He was our everything.”
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Kilpatrick has seen the whole incident unfold. He assists Brereton — with whom he has an extraordinarily close relationship — and tries to edge him forward.
“He went to get up and fell flat back on his face. I sort of got to him and half picked him up, I just tried to send him down to the forward pocket,” Kilpatrick says.
“His eyes were a bit glassy, but there was genuine trust between us.”
Brereton is an unwilling patient.
He insists he is staying on the ground, against Gay’s initial wishes, even as sixth-gamer Greg Madigan warms up on the sidelines.
But, as Kilpatrick maintains, “you’d have had to have put him in ball and chains to get him off”.
‘THEY COULDN’T KILL THE DRAGON’
Stone points Brereton forward, and he goes down to the forward pocket for further assessment.
Brereton’s stomach convulses and he begins to throw up. But he still won’t go off.
Jason Dunstall kicks the Hawks’ first goal at the three-minute-mark, and Brereton — now playing on Steven Hocking — watches it sail over his head.
A minute later, it happens.
Darrin Pritchard, who has started in the middle and will have an outstanding game, takes a handball from John Kennedy and directs a kick deep into attack.
Brereton disengages from Hocking. He runs back into who knows what, raises his arms for the first time since the incident and drags down a strong mark.
Blight recalls: “The ball just floated over (Hocking’s) fingers … Steve was probably in the right spot.”
Channel 7’s Dennis Cometti says: “That was a fitness test for Dermott Brereton, he went back and he took it … always relishing being in the thick of things.”
Owning the moment, Brereton slots it through from 35m and gives a fist pump as if to assure himself he was back.
Hawthorn football manager John Hook, who is in the box with Jeans, sees it as a team-lifting moment.
“We knew what it meant,” Hook tells.
“They (Geelong) had played their best shot at him and he still got up. It gave us a bit more impetus and deflated them a bit.
“Dermott was genuinely tough … he lived by the sword.
“To his great credit, they tried, but they couldn’t kill the dragon.”
The Hawks are in front by a goal, the time-clock ticks over five minutes in the first quarter.
Few in the stands, let alone Brereton, have had time to take a deep breath. And there’s still more to come …
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