To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1980 premiership, Richmond Media is transporting Yellow and Black barrackers back in time throughout 2020 to follow the Punt Road path to that fantastic flag triumph. Today we take a look at ‘The Sunday Press’ football writer Michael Davis’ review of Richmond’s Round 13 match of the ’80 season against Essendon at Windy Hill, which took place on Saturday, June 21 before a crowd of 24,048.
“Handball, that deadly weapon of top VFL teams when it is used to perfection, put an enthusiastic Essendon in a winning position and then brought about its downfall at Windy Hill yesterday.
The Bombers came out running against leaders Richmond. And they had three goals on the board before the Tigers knew they were playing.
They were helped by some crafty pre-match positional moves by coach Barry Davis.
He opened with Simon Madden at centre half-back on the tall David Cloke, and used another big man in Stephen Taubert to counter the League’s leading goalkicker, Michael Roach.
Davis also had Alan Stoneham shadowing Kevin Bartlett.
In the opening stages of the game the moves proved effective.
Tiger coach Tony Jewell was forced to bring the irrepressible Cloke on to the ball and place ruckman Mark Lee at centre half-forward, while Roach was goalless until the 22-minute mark of the second term.
The Bombers ran to a 30-point lead before the Tigers took stock late in the quarter and clawed their way back into the game.
High-leaping Essendon forward Paul Van Der Haar was being given plenty of space in front of the goals and had two majors on the board before his opponent Jim Jess could blink.
But Van Der Haar’s confidence seemed to fall away after he hit the post twice – a fate which was to befall the Bombers another three times before the heartache for their supporters was over.
When the Tigers woke up to themselves and their centre line started to function properly, they made the first quarter look respectable by trailing by 12 points at quarter time.
The game then developed into a hard-slogging affair, with Cloke, who finished with five goals, clearly the difference between the two sides.
As the afternoon progressed the Bombers had no answer to his marking, long kicking and ability to score goals.
Bomber supporters were groaning in the stand for most of the third quarter as they watched their team take possession of the ball but fail to convert its chances.
The nippy handball seemed to desert the Bombers in this quarter.
Richmond coach Tony Jewell said his side could play a lot better than it did yesterday, but said the game was a good physical preparation for this week’s big match at the MCG against Collingwood.
Of Essendon he said:
“They seemed to save the kamikaze stuff for us. They did it the first time, too.”
Match details
Richmond 4.6 8.10 10.16 16.21 (117)
Essendon 6.6 9.10 11.15 15.17 (107)
Goals – Richmond: Cloke 5, Tempany 3, Monteath 3, Roach 3, Rowlings, Bartlett.
Best – Richmond: Cloke, Tempany, Raines, Bourke, Rowlings, Bartlett, Wood.
Goals – Essendon: Foreman 3, Besanko 2, Van Der Haar 2, T. Daniher 2, Watson 2, Merrett 2, Mansfield, Fowler.
Best – Essendon: Watson, Foreman, Neagle, Stoneham, Muir, Taubert, Marsh.
