I did a bit of research into what it would take to win a grandfinal according to the number worn on the backs of players that had played in and won a grandfinal.
I was hoping to find an elite set of numbers that would match today's best of Richmond players to a winning team of a previous grandfinal, that is to say match the numbers of a team exactly, number for number.
Not knowing what I would find, I found a few interesting things, unfortunately the elite set of numbers weren't to be found.
In any case, what I did find out is pretty cool, especially one guy who only played a single game in his whole footy career, kicked one goal in that first game and also won a premiership in that game, he wore the number 11 jumper and his name is Billy James, which is a fav number of mine anyway as I was always a big fan of Bruce Monteath and Joel Bowden.
The number 11 appeared in 6 of our ten GF wins.
The number 17 only appears in 7 of our 10 GF's.
The only jumper number to appear in every winning grandfinal was number 4 which appears 11 times out of 10 GF wins.
Yep that's right, 11 times.
In 1921 two players in the same team in the same Grandfinal both worn the number 4 on their backs.
Norm McIntosh played in number 4 for five years and Hughie James played for thirteen years, the first three years have no reference on a number jumper. Then two years in the nomber 15, then one year in number 4, another two years after that in number 15 and the last 5 years in number 4 jumper. His last year being 1923.
In the same game there were two number 1's worn by two different players. Strange days lol.
This also happened again in 1932 where two number 9's were in the one GF win. The same two players both wearing the same number 9 played in and won the 1934 GF.
Number 26 (Robin Nahas, which is one player I had been saying for the past few years to put to pasture) is the only number (between 1 and 33) never to have appeared in a winning grand final, so I hope the Tigers burn that jumper and never resurrect it.
Number 3 has only appeared 4 times in winning GF's with number 21 only appearing twice (both times worn by Neil Balme).
There are stronger numbers and weaker number, (more of appearing and less of appearing) such as after the 17 guernsey, there are no significant appearances from a number until the number 29, it appeared 8 out 10 GF's (of course, barlett had 5 of those) all the other high numbers are three to five appearances.
Of the stronger numbers,
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16 and 17
It is quite obvious though that there are twenty or so players on a team playing at any one time, so it makes sense that the jumper numbers from 1 through to 18 would be higher in all time appearances. Well you would think so anyway.
Numbers in the higher twenties have appeared for all time much more than lower numbers, this is probably because of longer careers of lower number jumpers.
Well again you would think so. With out adding the entire games up many higher jumper game tallies were as high as lower numbers.
Anyway to predict a GF win from jumper numbers, is a little insane, I just love numbers and cross referencing.
So from what I can see, the numbers to have in a grand final win are
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 27, 28, 29 and 30 add in 13, 14, 22, and 25.
