Richmond’s bid to keep its premiership hat-trick dream alive throughout the 1975 season depended on victory over Collingwood in what was the Club’s inaugural elimination final.

After winning back-to-back premierships under coaching ‘Immortal’ Tommy Hafey in 1973-74, the Tigers had endured a somewhat patchy season, finishing fourth at the end of the home-and-away rounds with 13 wins and nine losses.

They were ahead of Collingwood by percentage only (113.5 to 93.9), although they had decisively beaten the Magpies on both occasions during the home-and-away season (50 points in Round 6 at Victoria Park and 46 points in Round 17 at the MCG).

Before a crowd of 65,512 at Waverley Park on Saturday, September 6, the Tigers appeared well and truly headed for another convincing win against Collingwood, when they burst out of the blocks in the elimination final to lead by 28 points at quarter-time.

That lead had stretched to 32 points at the long break, and the Tiger Army was in full cry.

But in keeping with Richmond’s fluctuating ’75 season, the team fell away in the third term, being outscored by 17 points (4.1 to 1.2) to lead by just 15 points at the final change.

The Magpies, with the scent of victory in their nostrils, stormed home.

They were completely outplaying a Richmond side that had stopped to a walk, but simply couldn’t make the most of their opportunities on the scoreboard.

Time and again, they missed shots for goal they should have converted, as the Tigers lay on the ropes desperately trying to avoid the knockout punch.

With only a few minutes remaining in the contest, Collingwood had crept to within a goal and appeared set to surge ahead.

Enter Bill Nettlefold . . .

The 22-year-old, stockily-built ruck-rover (178cm, 89kg), playing just his 15^th senior game of league football, was on the end of a rare Richmond foray forward in the last quarter, taking a mark and then calmly slotting through what was to be the match-sealing goal.

It was his second goal of the final term in what turned out to be his last senior game for Richmond.

Somehow, the Tigers managed to hang on, recording a four-point win – 11.11 (77) to 10.13 (73) – to keep their premiership hopes alive.

They won again the following week, beating Carlton by nine points in the first semi-final, before bowing out of the ’75 premiership race when they were downed in the preliminary final by North Melbourne, who would go on to win the premiership (their first one) that year.

Nettlefold went on to join the Kangaroos, and subsequently played in their 1977 premiership side, before finishing his league career at Melbourne.

 Here’s a report of the 1975 elimination final from chief football writer of ‘The Age’ at the time, Ron Carter . . .

“Collingwood, and not Richmond, should be playing Carlton in next Saturday’s first semi-final at the MCG . . .

And the Magpies would be there if a childhood dream had not come true for Richmond ruck-rover Billy Nettlefold at VFL Park on Saturday.

Because of Nettlefold, Richmond is still in the running to collect a hat-trick of premierships.

“All my life I’ve dreamt of kicking a goal in time-on to seal a big game like this final,” Nettlefold said.

And that’s exactly what he did to help the Tigers tie up their four-point win over luckless Collingwood.

Nettlefold knew the game hinged on his kick and he took his time to line it up.

He pulled down his jumper, cleaned his right boot and wasn’t too happy when field umpire Kevin Smith put him on a more accurate angle after he had cribbed around.

“I tried to remember to do everything right,” Nettlefold said.

“I kept my head down, and as soon as the ball left my boot I knew it was going through.”

And just as well, too, because the Magpies would surely have snatched the lead in the remaining minutes.

Collingwood needed just one more goal to change the whole complexion of the match, and no one could say it didn’t have the chances.

Captain Wayne Richardson, Peter Moore and Phil Carman all missed reasonably easy goals in the last quarter.

Any of them could have put Richmond in mothballs . . .

Richmond coach Tom Hafey knew the Magpies would come home with a great finish and they didn’t disappoint him.

Hafey warned his players about it at half-time, but they didn’t heed his words.

Hafey said the Tigers got slow and lazy and were not prepared to punish themselves in the third quarter.

So many of their good first half players such as Sheedy, Balme and Monteath disappeared, and the Tigers’ tackling, so severe in the first two quarters, lost its power.

Still, the Tigers were lucky to have a few battlers like Bartlett, Sproule and Nettlefold who kept going.

No, it wasn’t a very convincing performance from Richmond, and Hafey is one of the first to admit it.

The Tigers will have to give more over a much longer period if they want to stay in the fight for the flag.

Hafey, for one, says they can improve.”

Champion Richmond rover, Kevin Bartlett, in his column for ‘The Age’ wrote . . .

“People have written us off after what they describe as a “narrow escape”.

We prefer to think of it as a good demonstration of how we in Tigerland can hang on to win vital matches . . .

We rang rings around Collingwood in the first half.  Of course Collingwood played badly, but you can play only as well as you’re allowed to play – right?

OK, we lost concentration, but for a start we lost Neville Roberts from the centre and that unbalanced the side, and Kevin Sheedy and Michael Green were after all having only their first run after being out with injury for several weeks.  The run on Saturday will do them a lot of good.

Tommy said we had too many slow, lazy players who wouldn’t punish themselves – that won’t happen again.  He’ll see to that.

But boy, we had some pretty good little players, too.  What about young Allan Edwards, isn’t he a find?  And Bill Nettlefold, those two goals of his in the last quarter proved handy, didn’t they?

Our half-back line of Francis Bourke, Kevin Morris and Robert McGhie was pretty tight all day, in the first half as a good springboard for attacks, and later, under pressure, as a pretty good defence unit.

Dick Clay did a wonderful job on Phil Carman and Paul Sproule turned in a fine effort, considering he, too, was making a comeback after injury.

I thought Bruce Monteath was down a bit on the day, but he’s such a good boy, he’ll be all right next week.  He might have been suffering from finals nerves, who knows?”

1975 elimination final details

Richmond            5.5          7.8          8.10        11.11 (77)

Collingwood       1.1          2.6          6.7          10.13 (73)

Goals – Richmond:  Edwards 3, Bartlett 2, Nettlefold 2, Balme, Green, Monteath, Wood.

Leading possession-getters – Richmond:  Bartlett 20, Morris 19, Walsh 19, Balme 18, Monteath 18.

Goals – Collingwood:  Wearmouth 3, Carman 2, Heard 2, Atkinson, Moore, W. Richardson.

Leading possession-getters – Collingwood:  W. Richardson 26, Shephard 21, R. Shaw 20, Wearmouth 18.