To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1973 premiership, Richmond Media is transporting Yellow and Black barrackers back in time throughout 2023 to follow the Punt Road path to that fabulous flag triumph. Today we take a look at Richmond ruckman Brian Roberts’ review of the Tigers’ Round 6, 1973 clash with Carlton in his “From Inside The Fence” column for The Age newspaper.

“We took some revenge on Saturday – we beat Carlton by 26 points.

I know it wasn’t a Grand Final – nothing like it – but none of us at Richmond has forgotten the thrashing we took to lose last year’s premiership to Carlton.

And with Tommy Hafey constantly reminding us of it, we just had to prove we were a better side.

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We proved that all right on the day. Our whole team was more desperate than Carlton and our young players like Robert Lamb, Stephen Rae and Robert McGhie were absolutely great.

Playing against Carlton is always a challenge to Richmond as a team and to me personally.

I have great admiration for the ruck play of Big Nick and Peter Jones and it’s always satisfying to play well against them.

I know they were without Alex Jesaulenko and Geoff Southby, but don’t forget we had lost Royce Hart and Francis Bourke.

And speaking of those four names brings me to another point – it’s farcical to play club games with a State game on.

It’s not fair to any club to have to play for premiership points without its best players, players around whom the whole team style is built.

What a difference Southby makes to the Carlton defence.

On Saturday, it went to water in the second quarter when we kicked 10 goals while our defence was able to hold all right when Carlton applied pressure in the third quarter.

Incidentally, that second quarter was the best I have seen from a Richmond side.

Everything seemed to go right and some of the goals were fantastic. It was tremendous to see an older player like Roger Dean helping the younger ones so much.

Dick Clay in his 150^th game was a big winner for us at centre half-forward and with most of the side firing we played close to what we think is our best.

We relaxed mentally as well as physically in the third quarter and at the start of the last, and for a couple of minutes I thought Carlton was going to get back on top, but we steadied – something we weren’t able to do in that Grand Final.

I know it was a big day for Nick (John Nicholls’ 300^th game), but he certainly didn’t show it on the field.

It was the same old Nick – hard to get around, and extremely hard to beat.

I can’t really say who played well for Carlton – that’s not one of the things you look for when you’re playing against a side.

But David McKay took a lot of marks in the second half and Syd Jackson always seemed dangerous whenever he got the ball . . .”

Match details

Richmond         2.6       12.12    13.16    18.20 (128)                              

Carlton             5.2       5.3       11.6     15.12 (102)      

Goals – Richmond: Green 5, McLean 3, Bartlett 2, Cumming 2, Dean 2, Lamb 2, Morris, Rae.

Leading disposal-winners – Richmond: Bartlett 26, Lamb 23, Dean 22, Walsh 22, Hunt 21, Morris 18.

Best – Richmond: Lamb, Dean, McGhie, Roberts, Clay, Bartlett, Cumming, Green.

Goals – Carlton: Nicholls 4, Jackson 2, Jones 2, Kennedy 2, P. Hall, Keogh, McKay, Walsh.

Leading disposal-winners – Carlton: Crosswell 26, P. Hall 24, Crane 23, Chandler 22, Walsh 22, Jackson 21.

Best – Carlton: McKay, Jones, Jackson, Chandler, Nicholls, Walsh.

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