Tigers recall epic 1995 semi-final comeback victory and the lessons learnt from aftermath

It was Richmond’s high-point in a 37-year run of misery. And although Tigers’ fans weren’t aware — it put them on a path to premiership glory over two decades later.

The 1995 semi final revisited.

Nick Daffy remembers the roar at the Punt Road end like it was yesterday.

Thirty seasons ago, late in the third quarter of the 1995 second semi-final between Richmond and Essendon, Daffy broke through the MCG centre square and nailed a long bomb from outside 50m to help turn the tide in an epic comeback win.

“If he kicks this, have a listen to this – HAVE A LISTEN TO THIS,” boomed commentator Ian Robertson in the Channel 7 broadcast booth.

Trailing by five goals at the main break, John “Swooper” Northey’s Tigers flew home to win by 13 points and book a preliminary final berth against Geelong.

Nick Daffy (L) celebrates a huge major.

Though the Cats would demolish them – as they almost always did through that era – it was the high-water mark in a 37-year run of misery at Richmond before the golden days of “Dusty” and “Dimma”.

“It still gives me shivers thinking about that roar,” Daffy said this week.

“I actually don’t know how I let go of it, I was inside the square and it just sailed through.

“It’s probably the best goal I’ve ever kicked and I remember thinking, ‘Well, I think we might be a chance’.”

Three stunning first-half goals by Matthew Knights, including a five-bounce run in the second quarter, kept the Tigers in the match before Northey threw the magnets around at halftime.

Scott Turner went forward, Brendon Gale went back and Daffy and Stuart Maxfield were moved into the midfield. Goal-sneak Chris Naish later shifted to a wing.

The momentum turned for good just before three-quarter-time when Turner poleaxed Gary O’Donnell with a hip and shoulder and Daffy kicked his goal.

Nick Daffy kicks a goal from long range

The next time Daffy felt the same magnitude of roar by the Tiger Army was 22 years later when Kane Lambert slammed through the opening goal in the 2017 Richmond-Greater Western Sydney preliminary final at the ’G.

“That might have been the loudest roar of them all – but it did remind me of that day,” Daffy said.

As a raw recruit from Burnie, Tasmania, Gale recalled club great Kevin Bartlett talking about the power of the club’s then-dormant supporter base.

“As a young bloke you’d hear KB and a few others around the place talking about how you will see another side to the club if we have success,” the former Tigers ruckman-turned-chief executive said.

“They kept reminding us of what the club had been and can be again.”

But it wasn’t until the second half of that 1995 semi-final that Gale fully grasped what they meant.

“The Richmond crowd is always loudest when we are coming back and so I’ll never forget that day,” Gale said.

Richmond enjoy their semi-final win.

“It was just incredible, like a seismic reaction in the stadium when we hit the front.

“I remember Deary (Greg Dear) had a big smile on his face and he said, ‘Just enjoy it. Finals are hard to get into, let alone win’. He’d played in a few (for Hawthorn) and so I just soaked it all in.

“Then I remember walking back to Punt Road for the after-match and it was still daylight.

“There were hundreds of kids still out kicking the ball around.

“It was late spring and the days are longer in September and I was like, ‘S**t, I’ve never experienced this before’. Usually our seasons were wrapped up by late August.

“And I think it just reminded us of what we were capable of. It had only been 13 years since the 1982 grand final, but somehow it felt longer.”

But in a move that summed up Richmond’s ineptitude through the late 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s, Northey walked away just weeks later to coach the Brisbane Bears after Tigers bosses rejected his request for a contract extension.

It’s a lesson Gale (now CEO of team Tasmania) did not forget when pressure mounted on Tigers coach Damien Hardwick 21 years later.

John Northey coached his final victory at the Tigers in the semi final.

Lesson learnt: Sticking with Hardwick pays off. Picture: Getty Images

“I don’t want to be Harry Hindsight, but we had a coaching change that year and I would have thought we would have settled in for a period of consolidation,” Gale said.

“When I started years later as CEO I felt that we had lost our confidence as a club, but I always felt that Richmond had been a very ambitious club and a very successful club – and not to shy away from that.

“On most measures we have been very successful through history and it was just about reminding our people about the mere fact that we have been great on and off the field, means that we can be great again.

“And that we can build to a size and a scale that we are now familiar with.

“We just needed to be really clear on our plans and have a clear vision of the future and the things we needed to execute in order to get there.

“You barrack for a club because you want to belong, you want to feel a part of something bigger than yourself – and through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s Richmond people felt that way and that’s why they swarmed to the club in numbers.

“That win in ’95 against Essendon was just a reminder that we were a big club with a lot of support and just needed to give our people a reason to believe.”

The win was a famous one for the Tigers.

A decade later, the Richmond-Essendon rivalry grew again with the advent of the annual Dreamtime at the ’G clash pioneered by Tigers and Bombers legend Kevin Sheedy, who coached the Dons that day in 1995.

Friday night’s encounter will be the 21st Dreamtime clash.

Daffy sat with his son Archie (a future father-son prospect at Geelong College) during Covid to watch a replay of the semi-final.

“Thank god for YouTube. He loves that goal,” Daffy joked.

“I actually feel like that game was the start of us getting the Tiger Army back together as a force at the club.

“Especially playing against Essendon, who were a big club and still are – they’d won the premiership in ’93.

“That was the biggest pinnacle we had, it was such a big win for us as a group, but looking back now you realise that you have to have a strong organisation above, whether its coaches or administrators – and at that time we were a little bit all over the place.

“Fast forward 20 years later, there’s absolutely no doubt that Brendon Gale made those decisions (during the Damien Hardwick era) based on his feel of being a player.

“I don’t think those decisions would have been made if Benny wasn’t in place – not because he guessed it as a businessman, but because he’d lived it as a player.”

Originally published as Tigers recall epic 1995 semi-final comeback victory and the lessons learnt from aftermath