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 Age’ football writer Simon Balderstone’s review of Richmond’s Round 16 match of the ’80 season against St Kilda at the SCG, which took place on Sunday, July 20 before a crowd of 14,077. And, given the Tigers’ outstanding achievement that day, we also present multi-media megastar and Collingwood great Lou Richards’ unique take on the clash in ‘The Sun’ newspaper. First-up, it’s The Age’s match review . . .

“For the promoter’s it was a mixed bag, for Tony Jewell “a good way for the boys to run back into form”, and for Alex Jesaulenko a perfect illustration of how enthusiasm can take a football team only so far.

And that wasn’t very far, less than a quarter. After that, it was a matter of brawn and experience taking over, and Richmond was the only side with those attributes.

For the angle of the promoter – and that, after all, is primarily why any VFL match is played at the Sydney Cricket Ground – it wasn’t all bad.

Wined and dined, cruised and boozed, by the entrepreneurs, the Sydney Press had done its job with pre-match publicity and much of it was lived up to.

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“Michael Roach, the 6ft. 5in. spectacular full-forward” was spectacular. Trevor Barker, the blond-haired high-flying St Kilda dasher” did fly high, did dash (and did have blond hair). Kevin Bartlett, “the veteran goalsneak” did sneak goals like he had been doing it for 330 games.

But for the small matter of a 152-point win, the game would have converted many more followers of “running wrestling” to ozball.

Admittedly the shape of the SCG is conducive to big scores. North Melbourne beat Footscray by over 20 goals here in April, and until yesterday that was the biggest winning margin this season.

The ground is round, literally. Two kicks long, two kicks wide. Yesterday, it was also rock hard, and becalmed.

So if ever Michael Roach was going to have it his way, it was yesterday.

But the first example of the short route to goal came from St Kilda, and only ten seconds into the game. Bruce Duperouzel (still conscious at this stage) dribbled the ball from the centre bounce 10 metres to centre half-forward, and Simon Meehan snapped it a little further for a goal.

Twenty-odd minutes later, St Kilda led by six goals. At the risk of sounding wise after the event, the lead always looked temporary. It had been done through bubbling enthusiasm, a burst of fresh innovative confidence against the Richmond mechanism.

But that was accompanied by sloppy handball and kicking reminiscent of a 1960s Hawthorn side and inevitably, the bounce faded, the harsh physical realities of the game took over, and it was goodbye St Kilda.

Between the time-on period of the first quarter and the eight minute mark of the third quarter, St Kilda did not score, and added only four goals (from seven scoring shots) in the second half.

It was no coincidence that the scores at both ends of the 40-minute gap, and four of the 11 St Kilda goals, came from Trevor Barker. A “one man effort” is a cliché used unashamedly in this case.

He did the hard work – the tackling, the chasing: he finished it off with numerous “TV” marks and goals: and in the last quarter, when “resting on the forward line” he could but watch the slaughter at the other end.

After its fifth slow start in a row, Richmond managed five goals late in the first quarter, eight in the next and 21 in the second half.

The short ground meant that the inevitable Mark Lee hit-out was trapped and delivered to a forward within seconds. Often it was a strong Roach mark, or a Bartlett snap.

Richmond coach Tony Jewell frowned fleetingly when, after the match, he recalled the slow start, but, yes, it had been a good way to get back form. An easy game for the “down” players to charge back from the loss to Fitzroy last week (before that, the last non-win for Richmond had been the draw against St Kilda).

Alex Jesaulenko once again talked of getting back to basics. How far? “Right back. First, we need four-quarter footballers. From there, all the skills have to be taught.”

“You can go so far on enthusiasm. Our inability to be able to handle all facets of the game meant that as soon as Richmond got physically hard, we made mistakes, they capitalised on them and belted the ball through the goals.” Cruel but fair with some justification, Jesaulenko would not concede that Richmond were a 25-goal better side.

But in their third appearance at the SCG (it was St Kilda’s first) Richmond had kicked their highest ever VFL score, and got within a few kicks of the VFL record: a good lead up to what Jewell readily admitted was a “different kettle of fish altogether”, Geelong.

As for St Kilda, back to Jezza: “They’ve got to go through these experiences to make them better. They have to learn, but still the drubbing is not that easy to take.”

Here is Lou Richards’ appraisal in The Sun of Richmond’s dazzling display . . .

“Richmond kicked a club record score of 34.18 to thrash St Kilda by 152 points at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday.

The Tigers’ mammoth total of 222 points is 23 points more than their previous record score, 199 points against North Melbourne way back in 1931, which they equalled against Fitzroy earlier this season.

Their score of 11.4-70 in the third quarter exactly equalled St Kilda’s score for the match.

For three quarters the Tigers looked good, but they shouldn’t get too carried away by their one-sided win.

What they should remember is that they were in trouble in the first quarter until the young Saints’ hearts stopping pumping pure adrenalin and St Kilda lost momentum.

St Kilda, 7.1 – 43, led Richmond, 5.3 – 33, by 10 points at quarter time, four of Richmond’s goals came in a flurry at the end of the quarter.

“The Tigers are not that good,” Saint coach Alex Jesaulenko said after the match, referring to the final scores.

“We made them look a lot better than they are.”

Surprisingly, Richmond coach Tony Jewell agreed with Jezza to a certain extent.

Jewell said he was disappointed by the Tigers’ poor start against inexperienced opposition.

“We’ve been doing it for weeks,” he said. “We had better not do it next week against Geelong.”

The best part of the game as far as the Tigers were concerned, Jewell said, was the way players who had been down had “shown a bit.”

I’ll say they did!

Richmond full-forward Michael Roach, who had been struggling, kicked 10 goals, could have had 14, and was best man on the ground in a team which didn’t have a bad player.

Mark Lee regained form and confidence to do everything right in the ruck and Dale Weightman and Robert Wiley were busy and effective little players.

Kevin Bartlett? All I can say about “Hungry” is that he is carving out a marvellous new career for himself on the half-forward flank.

His game yesterday, when he kicked six goals and had a hand or a boot in as many more, was a reincarnation of his premiership form of 11 and 13 years ago.

Richmond showed a lot of poise and maturity the way it steadied and came back at St Kilda after the Saints had made such a good start.

And once they got on top the Tigers asserted their authority the way a good team should.

Call it “arrogance” if you like, but there are never any worries about whether or not the umpire hears the siren when Roach, Bartlett and Co. are in full flight.”

Match details

Richmond         5.3       13.7     24.11    34.18 (222)
St Kilda             7.1       7.1       10.3     11.4 (70)

Goals – Richmond: Roach 10, Bartlett 6, Monteath 5, Cloke 3, Wiley 2, Dunne 2, Smith 2, Weightman, Wood, Collins, Bottams.
Best – Richmond: Roach, Bartlett, Lee, Weightman, Cloke, Wiley, Monteath.

Goals – St Kilda: Barker 4, Cunningham 3, Scott 2, Meehan 2.
Best – St Kilda: Barker, Dunne, Kellett, Breen, Colling, Cunningham.