| 1980 VFL Grand Final | ||||||||||||||||
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| Date | 27 September 1980 | |||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Melbourne Cricket Ground | |||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 113,461 | |||||||||||||||
| Favourite | Richmond | |||||||||||||||
| Ceremonies | ||||||||||||||||
| Pre-match entertainment | Peter Allen | |||||||||||||||
| Accolades | ||||||||||||||||
| Norm Smith Medallist | Kevin Bartlett | |||||||||||||||
| Jock McHale Medallist | Tony Jewell | |||||||||||||||
| Broadcast in Australia | ||||||||||||||||
| Network | Seven Network | |||||||||||||||
| Commentators | Peter Landy,Lou Richards,Bob Skilton | |||||||||||||||
The1980 VFL Grand Final was anAustralian rules football game contested between theRichmond Football Club andCollingwood Football Club, held at theMelbourne Cricket Ground inMelbourne on 27 September 1980. It was the 84th annualGrand Final of theVictorian Football League, staged to determine thepremiers for the1980 VFL season. The match, attended by 113,461 spectators, was won by Richmond by a margin of 81 points, marking that club's 10th VFL/AFL premiership victory, and they would not win the premiership again until2017.
It was Richmond's first appearance in a premiership decider since winning the1974 VFL Grand Final, while Collingwood had competed in and lost two of the previous three Grand Finals, in1977 and1979. The Magpies had not won a flag since the1958 VFL Grand Final.
Richmond, under coachTony Jewell, made the decision in the 1980 home-and-away season to move roverKevin Bartlett to the half-forward flank, leading to him kicking 84 goals. At the conclusion of the season, Richmond had finished third on the VFL ladder (behindGeelong andCarlton) with 16 wins, 5 losses and a draw. Collingwood had finished fifth with 14 wins, 7 losses and a draw. Collingwood was coached byTom Hafey, who at one time had coached Jewell at Richmond.
In the finals series leading up to the Grand Final, Collingwood defeatedNorth Melbourne in the Elimination Final by 8 points before comfortably beating Carlton by 50 points to progress to the Preliminary Final. There they defeated Geelong by just 4 points to advance to the Grand Final. The Magpies became the first team to reach the Grand Final via the Elimination Final. Meanwhile, Richmond defeated Carlton by 42 points in the Qualifying Final and then Geelong by 24 points in the Second Semi-Final to progress to the Grand Final.
This was the first Grand Final in league history without either of the top two teams on the ladder after the home-and-away season. It wasn't until2019, 39 years later, that this set of circumstances would be repeated.
In the lead-up to the game, Richmond had key injury concerns withGreg Strachan andDavid Cloke.[1]
Both teams struggled for accuracy early, with star Tigers forwardRoach missing a set shot from a free kick and for the MagpiesKink's set shot going out on the full (an ominous sign of the poor day he was to have) andLow wasting a golden opportunity running into an open goal. Richmond got the first goal on the board five minutes into the quarter whenJess quickly played on from a 15-metre penalty and passed toWeightman in open space, allowing him to steady and kick truly from a slight angle.
The first few minutes of the first quarter were a tight affair, with the two teams trading scores. Collingwood led by a point 16 minutes into the game but from then Richmond completely outplayed the Magpies, with the game being effectively over at half time when the Tigers led by 43 points. Their midfield ofGeoff Raines,Bryan Wood,Robert Wiley,Mervyn Keane andDale Weightman dominated the clearances, feeding forwardsKevin Bartlett,Michael Roach andDavid Cloke.
TheNorm Smith Medal was presented byRon Barassi toKevin Bartlett, who was unanimously judged best-on-ground for his seven-goal effort by a voting panel consisting of then VFL presidentAllen Aylett, VFL General ManagerJack Hamilton,Jack Dyer,The Age chief football writerRon Carter, and ABC commentatorDoug Heywood.[2] His goal tally for the 1980 VFL finals was 21 which saw him become just the fourth player in history to kick 20 or more goals in a finals series. Cloke contributed 6 goals and Wiley 3 to the team's winning score.
The match statistics all pointed to Richmond's utter dominance; the 81-point margin set a new record for the biggest win in a VFL Grand Final to date, the Tigers had registered 44 scoring shots to Collingwood's 33, 205 kicks to 193, 120 handpasses to 55 and 74 marks to 52.[3] There was added significance to the win for Richmond with long-time club servantMaurie Fleming ill in hospital and watching the game on television. He died one week later
In his report forThe Age, chief football writerRon Carter commented that the one-sided nature of the contest had damaged the sport, dashing the VFL's hopes for a Grand Final that had been billed as one for the ages.[4] He also cited Collingwood's tough finals campaign as a key reason they were not at their best on the big day.[4]
This was Collingwood's seventh Grand Final loss since 1958, in the era dubbed "theColliwobbles".
      Richmond |   Collingwood |
The umpiring panel for the match, comprising two field umpires, two boundary umpires and two goal umpires is given below.
| Position | Emergency | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field: | Bill Deller(5) | Ian Robinson(6) | |||
| Boundary: | Leigh Paterson(4) | Geoffrey Willcox(5) | |||
| Goal: | Kevin Barker(5) | Robert Barker(2) |
Numbers in brackets represent the number of grand finals umpired, including 1980.
Richmond
| Collingwood
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