It’s 40 years ago today since Brian Taylor kicked his highest goal tally in a match for Richmond.
On Saturday, June 12, in Round 12 of the 1982 season, Taylor produced a powerful, match-winning 10-goal performance against Fitzroy at the MCG.
The then 20-year-old full-forward, playing just his 17th game at senior level with the Tigers, tore the Lion apart, marking strongly (12 marks) in trademark style and kicking accurately (10.3), also characteristically.
Here is esteemed football writer Trevor Grant’s account of the match and Taylor’s dominant display, which spearheaded him to the outright top of the competition’s goalkicking list after 12 rounds in the ’82 season, with 54 goals, seven ahead of his closest rival, North Melbourne’s Malcolm Blight...
“About this time last year a group of Fitzroy’s influential supporters began counting their money in preparation for a major assault on Melbourne’s football bookmakers.
Even though the home-and-away season had a good way to run, there was overwhelming confidence at the club that it would play in the 1981 finals.
The conviction, backed by several thousand dollars, was spot on, but the same supporters will not be so willing to part with their money this year after Richmond’s convincing disposal of Fitzroy’s half-baked challenge at the MCG on Saturday.
As one leading supporter said: “We remember 1980 too well (the year Fitzroy finished last after making the finals in 1979).”
While the Lions are in no danger of winning the 1982 wooden spoon, the frustrating inconsistency that has hindered their limb to respectability over the past few years remains.
There could have been no better atmosphere in which to prove themselves to the world than at the MCG on Saturday. They met the second-placed team in a match-of-the-day in front of 43,000 people at the stadium which generates more feeling than any other in the country. They could even watch the last round of a world title fight on the new scoreboard to get the adrenalin pumping as they ran their warm-up lap before the start of the game.
But after about 35 minutes of dazzling, powerful stuff, Fitzroy had nothing left. Richmond, after being 24 points down five minutes into the second quarter, pulled level by half-time and then went on to complete one of its most convincing wins of the season.
“You could feel real pressure out there; just like a final. You certainly don’t play many games like it and we have got to learn to handle it much better,” said Fitzroy rover and captain Garry Wilson, who had certainly handled himself remarkably well in a head-on clash that sent rugged Tiger defender Jim Jess to hospital.
Some looked to this first quarter collision between Wilson and Jess as a reason for Richmond’s rally in the second quarter.
But the blow, which was a fair but unfortunate shirt-front, had no motivational effect on the players of either side. The loud booing of Wilson every time he touched the ball after that incident (which was often) simply indicated that the ground was chockful of Richmond partisans who were not watching the game all that closely.
What did swing the game to Richmond was Brian Taylor, who at 20, 191 cm (6 ft. 3 in.) and 91 kg (14 st. 5 lb.) was so disillusioned with his prospects at Punt Road at the start of the year that he wanted a clearance.
But the former West Australian who spent last year playing Reserves grade football, has forced Australia’s best spearhead Michael Roach away from full forward this season. And after his 10 goals on Saturday – his tally in 12 games is 54 – his hold on the glamor position seems secure.
His taste of disenchantment and uncertainty has made him wary about looking too far down the road. After his match-winning day all he would say was that he was particularly pleased to get 10 goals because it may save him from being dropped and he was not looking at 100 goals in a season because he might be playing on the backline in a month.
On Saturday Taylor, who does not possess Roach’s flair for taking marks at cloud level, showed how to devastate three opponents (Chris Hansen, Chris Smith and Glenn Coleman) by using his body to grab the prime position and by making sure he held the ball when it came to him.
He also proved himself to be wise beyond years by taking note of the field umpire’s distant position before giving his opponent a deft shove in the back, a tactic that earned him a couple of marks and two goals.
Taylor would not have got half his tally without sure delivery from his team-mates down field. Ruck-rover Robert Wiley and roaming forward Peter Welsh gave him the chances that so many full-forwards at other clubs never seem to get.
This is expected of the highly-skilled Wiley but not of Welsh, a bustling type with a reputation for being hit-or-miss in the kicking and ball-handling departments. But the numerous blind turns, side-steps and bulls-eye passes on Saturday proved the lie to this.
Welsh and Wiley did not leave all the goals to Taylor. Wiley kicked five and Welsh four, giving the trio 19 of the team’s 23 goals.
In comparison Fitzroy did not have an effective forward. Young full-forward Paul Roos, with one goal, had a day he will not be keen to recall while Bernie Quinlan, after looking so strong and ever-present in the first half wilted through lack of opportunity in the last half.
Changes in all areas of the club over the past two years have done much to rid Fitzroy of the image it carried for 30 years as a rag-tag bunch of easy-beats.
But performances like Saturday’s will do much to halt this commendable progress.”
Match details
Richmond 4.7 10.8 17.11 23.18 (156)
Fitzroy 6.7 10.8 11.11 17.16 (118)
Goals – Richmond: Taylor 10, Wiley 5, Welsh 4, Cloke 2, Williams, Rioli.
Leading disposal winners – Richmond: Raines 30, Wood 25, Rioli 24, Rowlings 22, Wiley 22, Roach 21.
Best – Richmond: Taylor, Wiley, Roach, Welsh, Wood, Rowlings, Raines.
Goals – Fitzroy: Quinlan 3, Thornton 2, Conlan 2, Wilson 2, Murnane 2, Francis 2, Roos, McMahon, Parish, Gotch.
Leading disposal-winners – Fitzroy: Wilson 26, Quinlan 25, Murnane 22, Parish 22, Francis 21, Rendell 20.
Best – Fitzroy: Wilson, Harris, Lawrie, Quinlan, Parish, Murnane.
