Across the Maribyrnong, they reacted with incredulity that anyone would dare question the motives of their beloved Libba, or their much-admired coach and former player. Smorgon's response was to describe Casey as a "shock-jock looking for a sensational headline". Smorgon said it was an "unprovoked, offensive and unprecedented" attack which made their Carlton counterpart John Elliott "look like a diplomat".
Liberatore had already paid the price, being suspended for five matches at the tribunal after an AFL investigation into his hit on Knights. It was at this point that the fallout from the clash filtered down to the locker-room, a place which normally seals itself off from the bluster of the boardroom.
Campbell broke the players' code of silence at the tribunal, saying he saw Liberatore deliberately hit Knights. Not surprisingly, it generated a savage response from the Bulldogs.
"A couple of Richmond players broke the code about what happens on the field stays there. They dobbed in Libba and Terry certainly made a fair bit of that in the lead-up to the next match against them later in the year," said Paul Dimattina, a member of the Bulldogs' famed midfield mafia, which also included Liberatore and Jose Romero.
It was the uncompromising way the Bulldogs played the game under Wallace which contributed to the antagonism between the club and, not just Richmond, but the entire competition. "We went out there at times to bully and intimidate sides, with a fair bit of sledging. The idea of sledging is to get inside someone's head and throw them off their game," Dimattina said.
What made it so much worse for opposition supporters to stomach, as it did that day, was that the Bulldogs never seemed to have any qualms, or remorse, about the way they went about things.
"Libba tried to do what he did best, which was to unsettle the opposition," Dimattina said. "The result wasn't what he was trying to do. Sometimes you step over the white line and do things that prompt you to ask yourself: Did I really do that?' I think it was one of those incidents for Libba.
"But nothing fazes Libba. He was getting investigated every second week. To be honest, I've never seen anything really upset him, faze him or get him worried over the 13 or 14 years I've known him."
For all the hostility that erupted from this day, there was a snippet of humour, which Dimattina recalls with much fondness. "I started on the bench with Jose Romero. When Matty Knights came off he ran straight to us and started yelling abuse and saying, 'You two were involved in that as well'. It was the funniest thing we've ever heard on the footy field," said Dimattina, who now, as Essendon runner, works alongside Knights, one of Kevin Sheedy's assistants.
"I see 'Knighter' a fair bit and I still have a chuckle about it. He says he just wanted to bash someone back and we were the closest players he could see."
There wasn't much laughter to be heard between the Tigers and Bulldogs back then, though, and it's still difficult to detect now, six years on.
The Bulldogs aren't the in-tight intimidators they once were. As with all good teams, they play to their strengths, which are leg speed and swift ball movement. And Richmond, too, has undergone a major makeover, although whether it's more cosmetic than anything else is still to be decided.
But there's enough participants from the 2001 Round 2 game still playing at their clubs, as well as a whole raft of egos on sidelines, to keep the enmity alive.
The Tigers have 10 players from the 2001 list still at the club, while the Bulldogs have 14. Eleven of them played in the match -- five for Richmond and six for the Bulldogs -- while two others who were Bulldogs at the time, Patrick Bowden and Nathan Brown, are now at Richmond.
Campbell, who caused the Bulldogs so much angst, is now an assistant coach at the Bulldogs, as is Leon Cameron, who played at the Bulldogs and Richmond before joining the Dogs as a coaching off-sider.
Without doubt, though, it has been the transfers of Brown, in 2004, and then Wallace in 2005, which have generated more friction and heartburn than any others.
Smorgon reignited the flame when he claimed at the start of this season the Whitten Oval was a much better place now that the ultra-talented Brown had departed.
It was in keeping with his sentiments when the players voted not to give Wallace one final game to say farewell when he suddenly quit, one game before the end of the 2002 season. "Maybe there was a bit of naivete . . . in that Terry thought we would all buy the story. I think we all know the story and that's just sad," Smorgon said at the time in reference to Wallace's alleged link to the Swans coaching job.
When Frawley, who coached against the Bulldogs seven times for five wins in his five-year reign at Richmond, uttered his famous remark about every dog having its day, he didn't realise how prophetic it would prove.
While Richmond recovered incredibly well from the low-point of the Liberatore-Knights match, winning the next four matches, including a victory over the eventual 2001 premier, Brisbane, the very next week, the Bulldogs staggered badly, losing three of their next four.
By the time they came together for the return bout, in Round 17, the momentum was very much with the Tigers. They duly used it, coming from 16 points down in the final quarter to win by two points. "It was the game that kick-started our run to the finals and ended their year. I remember saying to the boys that whatever happens in the finals we won't be under more pressure than tonight," Frawley said.
Suddenly, Casey's lips, which appeared to have been sewn together after his emotional outburst against the Bulldogs earlier in the season, opened for business again.
"Some games are just a bit sweeter than others. They don't get much sweeter than this," he declared in the rooms after the win.
There is little doubt that the winner tonight will utter a very similar sentiment.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,21586871%255E20322,00.html
