Carlton v Geelong: The 30th anniversary of Malcolm Blight’s triumph in the ‘unlosable final’ and David Parkin’s sweet revenge

It’s been almost three decades since AFL heavyweights Carlton and Geelong met in finals action. Ahead of their clash this weekend, SHANNON GILL speaks to the protagonists in a shock outcome 30 years ago and the revenge sequel it triggered.

A pair of finals in 1994 and 1995 were the last time the Cats and Blues met in September.

With only one loss between them this season, the MCG heavyweight clash will be the biggest between Geelong and Carlton in decades and looks like creating its own piece of history.

A crowd pushing 80,000 is expected that would break the record for the highest home-and-away attendance between the two clubs across their 160 years of shared history in the VFA/VFL/AFL.

Just as Geelong have been a perennial contender for the last 35 years, Carlton did for the same period from the mid-1960s.

Yet they’ve only met each other twice in a final in the last 43 seasons.

2024 is the 30th anniversary of the first of those, with the most surprising of outcomes before a revenge sequel the following year.

It’s also a tale of two unique coaches.

“Wound up like two-bob watches”

Malcolm Blight’s pre-game speech against Carlton in 1994 has gone down in Cats folklore. Picture: Mark Brake

Then-Geelong CEO Greg Durham said it was “the most inspiring thing I’ve heard in football,” while ruckman John Barnes called it the “the best rev up of all-time”.

Liam Pickering might not remember every word today, but he remembers the impact Geelong coach Malcolm Blight’s pre-game speech had.

“Blighty got us wound up like two-bob watches before the game,” he says.

“It was unbelievable how he had us believing that we were going to win.”

Carlton and West Coast held a gap over the rest of the AFL for most of 1994, and even after the Blues’ shock loss in the first week of the finals, they were expected to account for a Geelong team already missing All-Australian halfback Michael Mansfield and Barry Stoneham in week two.

Those odds shifted further when not one, not two, but all three of Geelong’s midfield champions – Paul Couch, Garry Hocking and Mark Bairstow – were late withdrawals with injury.

“We lost the whole midfield really,” Pickering says.

Liam Pickering had the job on Greg Williams.

The Cats’ outlook was hopeless yet Blight’s positivity in the face of adversity was transformative.

Lesser lights who would fill the breach of the superstars left the last training session brimming with confidence. Pickering relished being handed the usually nightmare-inducing job on Carlton champion Greg Williams who was on his way to a second Brownlow Medal that year.

“I remember driving back to Melbourne the night before the match with Leigh Tudor and Aaron Lord, and we were just all really excited about the opportunity,” he says.

“We knew everyone would give us no hope and even though we didn’t have those great players I actually had a really good feeling about how we would go.”

Blight’s pre-game theatre the next day only added to it.

He told them they had a chance to change their lives and become heroes today. That all the pressure would be on Carlton. That the fill-ins were up to the job.

By the time he announced that Gary Ablett would captain the club for the first time the Geelong rooms at Waverley Park were about to explode.

“All he talked about was how we were going to win,” Pickering says.

“We walked out of the rooms thinking we were going to win. In fact in my own head, it was knowing we were going to win.”

Gary Ablett Snr kicked six goals in the shock Cats win. Picture: Darren Tindale

When the ball was bounced Pickering got the first kick and Ablett, who had given his own rare pre-match rev-up to the Cats on the field, kicked the first of six goals soon after.

They never looked back.

Lord would star in only his second AFL game, Tudor would play a major role kicking two goals, while Pickering would play perhaps the greatest game of his career.

As the Herald-Sun reported the next day: “Never in his wildest dream would Malcolm Blight expect Liam Pickering to not only nullify Williams but earn 31 possessions himself. Williams fought right back to end with 32 touches but the damage had been done.”

A comfortable Geelong win ensued and the Cats would continue their run for another fortnight before being overwhelmed in the grand final against West Coast.

Despite his semi-final coaching heroics, after three grand final losses Blight decided he’d had enough and resigned.

Meanwhile the recriminations began at Carlton.

Geelong lesser lights Paul Brown and Aaron Lord celebrate the against-the-odds win.

“They were sick of me” 

After the premiership favourites had bombed without whimper, Parkin openly pondered whether he could take his ageing group any further.

He tells CODE Sports today that it was a well-founded worry.

“They were thinking about giving me away!” he says.

“As it happened, I would have lost my job, but the three blokes they offered it to didn’t take it up. Dermott Brereton was one of them.

“So I was very, very fortunate to still be ‘so-called’ in charge.”

David Parkin's future looked bleak after the Blues finals exit in 1994.

His distinction is important. The shock loss to the undermanned Cats had been the last straw for a talented but highly strung team dealing with huge expectations. Parkin recognised he was the problem and things had to change in 1995.

“I would have driven them mad. I was the most autocratic, dictatorial prick to walk the face of the earth, so they were sick of me,” he laughs today.

The ‘unlosable final’ became the catalyst to put the ball in the players court and remove the coach’s overbearingness.

“We didn’t have a psychologist, so we went off and got Anthony Stewart, who had worked with the Australian cricket and netball teams.

“He came in and we gave ownership to the players. That had never been done in Australian sport before.

“The players decided who would play, how we would play, they debriefed their performance and did all of those sorts of things that I previously did.”

Player power drove Carlton’s response the following year.

By releasing its veteran stars to just do what they did best, Carlton realised it’s rich talent.

They would lose only two games for the year and face the Cats in the grand final this time with sky-high confidence rather than the tense anxiety of 1994.

The Blues would have the premiership safe midway through the second quarter, going on to win by 61 points. The most fight the Cats showed was during an all-in fracas on the halftime siren.

Pickering was one of the Cats’ best on a dirty day, but he has no fond memories of it.

“There were absolutely no excuses, we were just terrible on the day,” he says.

“They were the best team of the year, but we weren’t a 10-goal worse team. And 10 goals in the end flattered us the way we played.”

For Parkin the 1995 triumph came from the wreckage of the Blues’ ignominious exit to the Cats the year prior.

“We were able to annihilate them in ’95 and it came off the back of that.”

The half-time brawl was the most competitive Geelong got in the 1995 AFL Grand Final. Picture: Getty Images

*****

This weekend will be the biggest crowd at a Carlton versus Geelong game since that grand final and Pickering will be glued to it just like many other old Cats and Blues from the era.

And while Parkin’s memories are still sweet from that day, he says since then Geelong have become the club that all others should measure themselves against. Their modern day dominance rivals Carlton’s reign of the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, except they’ve done it with a draft and salary cap.

“What they’ve done has been unbelievable in terms of Australian football history,” he says about the Cats’ ability to contend year-in year -out.

“Geelong ought to be rewarded publicly and reinforced as a great institution.”

It’s no coincidence that after many false dawns this Carlton drive back to the top has a distinctly Geelong feel about it.

Carlton want to be what Geelong have been.

“We’re lucky now that Carlton have got Geelong’s CEO (Brian Cook) to come and work for us, and some of those Geelong values and behaviours will be the basis to the Carlton Football Club’s success as well.”

Regardless of the result, don’t be surprised if there’s a September sequel.

GEELONG v CARLTON 

John Barnes flies in Geelong’s win for the ages against Carlton.

Biggest home-and-away crowd:

2010 – 71,399, MCG

Biggest finals crowd:

1962 Preliminary final replay – 99,203, MCG

Geelong 1989-2023:

25 finals series, 10 grand finals, 4 premierships

Carlton 1967-2001:

26 finals series, 13 grand finals, 8 premierships

Last two finals:

1994 SEMI-FINAL (week 2)

Geelong 15.15 (105)

Carlton 10.12 (72)

Goals – Geelong: Ablett 6, Mensch 3, Tudor 2, Riccardi, Lord, Darcy, Hickmott. Carlton: Kernahan, Mitchell, Cook 2, Williams, Bond, O’Sullivan, Koutoufides.

Best – Geelong: Barnes, Pickering, Ablett, Mensch, S Hocking, Hinkley, Breuer, Handley, Lord, Brown. Carlton: McKay, S Kernahan, Mitchell, Sexton, Williams.

Crowd: 53,160 at Waverley Park

David Parkin and Stephen Kernahan holding the premiership cup in 1995.

1995 GRAND FINAL

Carlton 21.15 (141)

Geelong 11.14 (80)

Goals – Carlton: Williams, Kernahan 5, Pearce 4, Bradley 2, Spalding, Camporeale, Rice, Madden, Whitehead. Geelong: Handley, Brownless 3, Couch, Breuer, Pickering, Riccardi, Mensch.

Best – Carlton: Williams, Silvagni, Christou, Koutoufides, Dean, Ratten. Geelong: Mansfield, Pickering, Riccardi, Hickmott, Graham, Barnes.

Crowd: 93,670 at the MCG

Originally published as Carlton v Geelong: The 30th anniversary of Malcolm Blight’s triumph in the ‘unlosable final’ and David Parkin’s sweet revenge