Following yesterday’s announcement that Richmond premiership player and life member Emmett Dunne is returning to the Club as a board member, Tony Greenberg takes a look at his long, successful history with the Tigers.
Emmett Dunne’s association with Richmond stretches back to the early 1970s, when he accepted an invitation to join a special football scholarship squad the Club had set up for promising young players in its metropolitan recruiting zone.
Dunne, at the time, was 14 years old and showing plenty of promise playing junior football with Mt Waverley.
The scholarship squad members trained at Punt Road each Sunday morning during the season under the watchful eye of the Tiger talent scouts.
They liked what they saw from young Dunne and, subsequently, at just 15 years of age, he became, not just a member of Richmond’s under-19s team, but their captain as well.
He had an immediate impact, too, winning the under-19s Best and Fairest in his first season at Tigerland in 1972.
The following year, Dunne captained the under-19s to the premiership, producing a superb, four-goal, best-on-ground performance in their grand final triumph over Essendon. He also took out the under-19s Best and Fairest award for a second successive season.
Given the Tigers’ awesome depth of talent at the time, however, Dunne had to wait until 1976 before making his senior league debut.
Dunne eventually developed into a valuable member of Richmond’s senior line-up.
He was a strong-marking, reliable big man, who had the ability and discipline required to counter dangerous opposition players.
And, with his versatility, he filled important roles for the Tigers across the backline, up forward, as well as in the ruck.
Dunne proved his adaptability by holding down the important full-back post in Richmond’s 1980 Grand Final team that smashed Collingwood.
The man affectionately known as ‘Plod’, because of his long, successful career outside football as a policeman, also played in the Tigers’ 1982 Grand Final loss to Carlton.
At the end of 1983, Dunne departed Richmond and joined Footscray, where he would spend three seasons, including one as playing-coach of the Bulldog reserves.
He then had one season at VFA club Springvale, playing in its 1987 premiership side, before returning to Richmond as reserves coach from 1988-1991.
Dunne continued his involvement with the Tigers after that, as the Club’s ruck coach in 1992 and 1995.
Now, following his retirement from the Victoria Police Force and a two-decade stint on the AFL Tribunal, Dunne is back at Tigerland, keen to contribute in whatever way he can, as a board member, to the Club’s future success.
