Bad blood
By Rohan Connolly
The Age
May 7, 2005
Richmond coach Terry Wallace during the week called on Tiger supporters to revive the club's great rivalry with Carlton when the two clubs clash at the MCG today.
It must have been an appeal pitched exclusively to those Richmond supporters under 30. Because no football follower any older would need to be reminded of just how much the Tigers and Blues hated each other. And in some cases, still do.
From the time Richmond won its first premiership for 24 years in 1967, through to the mid-1970s, the two clubs ruled the VFL roost. They shared seven of the eight premierships won between 1967-74, the Tigers winning four, the Blues three.
The two giants of the VFL had the cream of the footballing crop; names such as Royce Hart, Kevin Bartlett, Francis Bourke for Richmond, stars the calibre of John Nicholls, Alex Jesaulenko and Robert Walls for the Blues.
Over 16 seasons between 1967-82, they met 11 times in finals, four times on grand final day. Those September clashes were invariably physical, memorable and usually controversial. And they came to an ugly head on grand final day 1973 in a couple of incidents that still raise a remarkable amount of emotion 32 years later.
Richmond had been the hottest of favourites a year previously, but was sensationally trumped by a Carlton side that adopted all-out attack and rattled up a record grand final score of 28.9 (177) to win by 27 points. The surprise loss stuck in Tiger craws all of 1973. And Richmond wasn't about to let slip the chance for atonement.
Three minutes into the game, Tiger defender Laurie Fowler famously KO'd Carlton captain-coach Nicholls, the Blues' giant leader in a fog for the rest of the afternoon. But the moment that pushed Carlton's emotions to breaking point came late in the second term, when Blues full-back Geoff Southby, trying to gather the ball, was knocked senseless by a swinging round-arm blow from tough Tiger Neil Balme. Southby, a key to Carlton's side, was helped from the ground, not to return. His opponent, Balme, who had broken David McKay's jaw in the 1972 play-off, wasn't reported, played on and helped Richmond to a famous 30-point win. And more than 30 years on, the memory still upsets the Blues.
"It left a sour taste in the mouths of Carlton people," says Walls. His former teammate, ruckman Peter "Percy" Jones, goes further. "We already hated each other a fair bit, but what they ended up doing to us in '73, that was the icing on the cake.
"Everyone was upset by that because he (Southby) was a ball player . . . He was just a marked man. He was taken out."
Less than four years ago, asked for his take on the Southby-Balme clash, Nicholls exploded into a withering diatribe about Balme. "I didn't respect him as a player because I reckon he was a cheat," Nicholls teed off. "He used to dwell on players and with his big, strong frame, he should have been doing more courageous things. People over the years say Balmey knocked a couple out, but he basically king-hit people."
Reminded of that spray this week, Balme responded as always. He's not particularly proud of what he did, but nor ashamed. They were different times, different standards.
Balme says when told of Nicholls' remarks, he felt sorry for him. "You get a bit disappointed because it's very easy to sit back now and tee off. It's a bit late in the piece to be starting to make judgements now, I reckon. We liked to beat them, they liked to beat us. I don't hate anyone from Carlton."
Southby is less flustered by it all than most of his contemporaries. "I see it nearly every year, and so does Balmey, and he's probably had enough of it more than I have. I'm pretty sure Balmey regrets it, and I've got a lot of time for what he's done in his career afterwards, so you move on and try to forgive and forget, but it certainly added to the spice of it all."
And continued to. When the teams next clashed, in round three of 1974, senior Carlton players were told in no uncertain terms that Balme was to be dealt with but Balme walked from the field relatively unscathed.
When the Tigers and Blues met in a final in 1975, Walls remembers Nicholls again placing his players on notice about "flying the flag". "I remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the second quarter, and with that in mind, I flew in there and I hit Kevin Morris. I got reported and ended up getting four weeks, but it was just the expected thing to do," Walls says.
A few years back, when the thorny issue of 1973 arose, Jones, speaking about the Tigers, said the likes of Balme and former Richmond tough man Mal Brown would never be welcome at Optus Oval. "That's presuming we'd ever want to go there," Balme shot back, impassively.
In 1998, when former Tiger Kevin Sheedy celebrated his record-breaking game as Essendon coach, sports psychologist Rudi Webster, who had worked with Sheedy at Windy Hill, but previously with Richmond and Carlton, was a guest speaker.
While in town, Webster stayed with close friend and former Carlton full-back and chairman of selectors Wes Lofts. And when Webster turned up at Lofts' place late one night with Sheedy in tow for a convivial drink, Lofts was less than amused.
Webster had been a central figure in another famous Richmond-Carlton "battle", this one between respective coaches, Jones for the Blues, and Tony Jewell for the Tigers, at quarter-time of the 1980 qualifying final. Webster had worked for Carlton and been involved in its 1979 premiership win, but crossed to Punt Road the following season.
"He'd been on the ground holding up the cup with us the year before, and here he was, with the opposition, and the most hated of them all," Jones explains. "I came walking out at quarter-time, and saw him in their group. I made a racist comment, which I shouldn't have: 'You're supposed to be a Carlton man, you something something.' Tony Jewell turned to me and said: 'What did you say?' I said: 'You heard'. Words became words, and he came haring at me. I thought: 'poo, he wouldn't hit me in front of all these people, would he?' As he got closer, he slowed down. I gave him a shove, he gave me a shove, and that was it."
It was Carlton who would have the last laugh, again beating hot favourite Richmond in the 1982 grand final, a day that signalled the beginning of the Tigers' demise as a power, a position the club has spent more than the past 20 years struggling vainly to regain.
But even since, the Tigers have managed on occasion to rise to the extra spur provided by navy blue opposition, in 1997 knocking Carlton out of the final eight in the last round, and their most recent win over the Blues coming in the 2001 first semi-final.
Buoyed by four wins and its eclipse of reigning premier Port Adelaide last week, Richmond today has one of its best chances to throw a spanner in Carlton's works. The Blues need to keep winning just as badly. But if players on either side need any more "feeling", they'll need only to glance around the former club greats still playing out perhaps football's greatest enmity more than a quarter of a century later.
Why Richmond and Carlton hate each other■ Geoff Southby incident, 1973 grand final
■ Laurie Fowler shirtfront on John Nicholls, 1973 grand final
■ Carlton upset Richmond in 1972 grand final, kicking record 28.9 (177)
■ Opposing coaches Tony Jewell and Peter Jones clashed physically at quarter-time of 1980 qualifying final
■ All-in brawl in first quarter of 1982 grand final
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