Toss of a coin resolved the last time Richmond had a clash of jumpers at Adelaide OvalMICHELANGELO RUCCI
Adelaide Advertiser
September 04, 2014 IT has happened before ... and last time Richmond won a toss of the coin to keep its traditional black-and-yellow jumper for a national game on Adelaide Oval.
It was October, 1973. Richmond was the VFL premier. Glenelg had broken its 39-year drought to claim what would be — until now — the last SANFL premiership won on Adelaide Oval.
Along with WAFL champions Subiaco and Tasmanian qualifier Scottsdale, the best four club teams from Australian football’s traditional states met on Adelaide Oval from October 6-8 for the Championship of Australia title.
The problem was obvious — Richmond and Glenelg had the same jumper: Black guernsey with yellow sash.
The solution was the most practical considering — unlike Sunday’s Port Adelaide-Richmond elimination final — neither Glenelg nor Richmond could point to a higher-ranking system as is offered on the AFL premiership ladder.
Club officials tossed a coin. Richmond won the toss and kept its home (and only) match-day jumper.
“It was a double-sided coin, it had to be,” says Graham Cornes, the last-minute hero of Glenelg’s 1973 grand final triumph against North Adelaide.
Glenelg was forced to dust down its yellow training jumpers that had been packed away for two weeks — and kept the black shorts assigned to home teams.
“Horrible, just horrible ... it was a horrible jumper,” Cornes recalled on Wednesday.
“It really looked horrible.
“Not much was said. We were still celebrating a grand final win.
“It didn’t look good. But what other option was there? We had to be practical — we both had the same jumper, so someone had to change.
“But that is totally different to what is happening this time.
“There is no reason whatsoever for the AFL to have forced Port Adelaide to change from its black home guernsey.
“There is no reason why Port Adelaide had to find an alternative strip.
“Had both teams played in their usual jumpers, no one would have noticed ... no one has for the past four years.”
For the record, Richmond won the game — and the Australian title beating Subiaco in the final.
Cornes, a long-standing critic of the Port Adelaide storyline since the club earned its AFL licence in December 1994, will question why the Power chose to adopt the Magpies’ traditional black-and-white prison-bar jumper as a compromise for Sunday’s elimination final.
This option came forward on Monday evening when Port rejected the AFL suggestion it wear the club’s white away guernsey.
Cornes notes Sunday’s first AFL final at Adelaide Oval should be a moment when the Power creates new history rather than lives off the Magpies’ story.
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