To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1974 premiership, Richmond Media is transporting Yellow and Black barrackers back in time throughout 2024 to follow the Punt Road path to that tremendous triumph. Today we delve back into the archives of The Age newspaper for a review by football reporter Paul Speelman of Richmond’s Round 6 match of the ’74 season against Geelong at the MCG.
Polly Farmer looked like the cat who’d licked the cream. And so he had.
The Big Cat and his litter of “kittens” had just licked the cream of VFL football reigning premier Richmond.
It wasn’t so much of a licking on the scoreboard – Geelong beat Richmond on the MCG by 10 points – but a licking all over the ground.
It started at the centre bounces and continued deep into the forward lines and back into defence.
They were too fast and systematic for the Tigers, their handball was too slick and their backing up taught the loose Tigers a lesson or two.
No wonder Farmer was licking his chops. Opposing coach Tom Hafey summed it all up after the game when he said: “They killed us in the ruck – not only did they win every hit-out but they got every crumb as well.”
And that was about it. Farmer used five players – ruckmen Rod Blake, John Newman and Leigh Crawford and ruck-rovers Ken Newland and Jack Hawkins – as a non-stop battering ram to hammer the Richmond rucks into the ground.
The Tigers had no answer – they were simply undermanned. Craig McKellar and Mike Green could not handle the job.
The Cats’ winning ruckwork was backed by a winning centreman in Wayne Closter – he beat at least two players on the day – and by a line-up of forwards with just one purpose in mind: to keep that ball moving at all costs and score goals.
One handpass to a player running past, then a long kick – it was a pattern that, with monotonous regularity, found the Tigers’ defence caught off guard and out of place.
They were forced into errors and bad errors at that. At one stage early in the last quarter full-back Robert McGhie, playing a strangely loose game, made two bad mistakes which resulted ion successive goals for the Cats.
And Tim Evans, Newland (especially when shifted to full-forward in the last quarter), David Clarke and Paul Sarah were quick to take advantage.
At the other end it was a similar story. Geelong’s half-back line of Bruce Nankervis, Gareth Andrews and Kevin Higgins was impassable. And behind them, John Scarlett at full-back, Geoff Ainsworth and Hawkins took care of most of the crumbs.
Richmond’s forwards – Hafey moved them all over the place to try to get some result – were not in the race.
Royce Hart was obviously badly hampered by his injured groin, Ian Stewart ran out of puff, Rex Hunt, shifted around all day from centre half-forward to full-forward and back again, was outplayed, and Stephen Rae could find little touch.
Only Mal Brown, despite his excess weight, and Kevin Sheedy knew what it was all about.
Even Kevin Bartlett was held to 19 kicks, a remarkably low total for a player who has been averaging near enough to 30 kicks a game.
“It’s the sort of thing you dream about,” said a contented Farmer.
“We’ve played like this before but never for the whole 120 minutes.”
Match details
Richmond 3.6 6.7 11.9 17.11 (113)
Geelong 5.1 8.6 13.10 18.15 (123)
Goals – Richmond: Bartlett 3, Brown 3, Stewart 2, Wood 2, Green, Hart, McKellar, McMillan, Morris, Rae, Sheedy.
Leading disposal-winners – Richmond: Sheedy 36, Wood 24, Brown 22, Morris 22, Bartlett 21, Bourke 21.
Best players – Richmond: Brown, Sheedy, Morris, Wood, Bartlett, Bourke, Cloke.
Goals – Geelong: Newland 5, Evans 4, Clarke 3, I. Nankervis 2, Sarah 2, Crawford, Sheehan.
Leading disposal-winners – Geelong: I. Nankervis 30, B. Nankervis 26, Closter 23, Sarah 23, Higgins 20.
Best players – Geelong: B. Nankervis (best on ground), Closter, Newland, Blake, Clarke, Sarah, Newman, Andrews.
Attendance: 31,483
