Grand Final #11B - 1966

[Harrysz]

St Kilda 74 defeated Collingwood 73

Rohan Rivett was a well-known journalist. His expertise was in politics and foreign affairs. He was a regular presenter on the Channel 7 nightly news where he appeared once a week. He never dabbled in sport, let alone Australian football. That is, until in the week leading up to the 1966 VFL Grand Final when he opined that it would be very nice if St Kilda won the premiership. This was not because he thought that St Kilda was the better side or ‘deserved’ to win. He thought it grossly unfair that in the whole history of the VFL, St Kilda had never won a premiership. I remember watching this and thinking, ‘What about St Kilda’s opponent Collingwood? What about the legions of Collingwood supporters?’ I found his presentation to be unsettling and unfair.

1966 was Bobby Rose’s third year as coach of Collingwood. Collingwood had a very narrow loss in the 1964 Grand Final and then (and many people may have forgotten this) Collingwood suffered a one point loss to St Kilda in the 1965 second semi-final. It was after that game that Bobby Rose said ‘I must be a jinx on Collingwood in the finals.’ This was a self-fulfilling prophesy.

In 1965 St Kilda contested its second ever Grand Final and was thrashed by Essendon. In 1966, Collingwood lost twice to Essendon including a 10 goal thrashing at Victoria Park. Clearly, Essendon as the reigning premier was the team to beat. Collingwood played St Kilda once during the home and away season and won by 12 goals. Collingwood finished on top of the ladder and although St Kilda finished second, fourth finishing Essendon appeared to be the main threat. Essendon dispatched Geelong in the first semi-final. In the second semi-final Collingwood beat St Kilda by 10 points in a tough come-from-behind victory. Des Tuddenham kicked 7 goals. To everyone’s surprise, St Kilda had a very comfortable win over Essendon in the Preliminary Final and faced off against Collingwood in the Grand Final. Collingwood was slight favourite. St Kilda was minus ruckman Carl Ditterich but they still had a star-studded team.

As the halftime siren rang, Len Thompson was awarded a free kick in Collingwood’s goal square. He couldn’t possibly miss. He missed. Collingwood went into halftime leading by one point instead of a goal. St Kilda centre half forward Darrell Baldock had a relatively subdued game but centreman Ian Stuart and full forward Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale (who kicked 5 goals), were dominant. At three-quarter time St Kilda led by 4 points. At the start of the last quarter Ray Gabelich was awarded a controversial free kick 20 metres from goal. He missed. With minutes to go and St Kilda leading by a point, Des Tuddenham had a flying shot for goal which scored a point. Scores level. Wayne Richardson had a flying shot for goal which went out of bounds. A draw looked probable. St Kilda rushed the ball into their forward line and a ball up ensued. Umpire Jeff Crouch bounced the ball and the ball found its way into Ted Potter’s hands. In a semi-panic he handballed blindly and Barry Breen got the ball and slammed it onto his boot. The ball bounced and bounced and went through for a point. St Kilda leading by one point. St Kilda attacked a couple of times but Terry Waters who was a wonderful mark held them out. Finally, he got the ball to the captain and potential matchwinner Des Tuddenham. He ran from centre halfback and bounced the ball once. There was an acre of space in front of him and he could have kept running towards goal, but instead, he kicked the ball forward and Bub Murray out-marked Ray Gabelich. He went back, took his time and kicked the ball to the boundary line. The siren went and St Kilda had won their first premiership by one point. There’s little doubt that if Tuddenham had had a couple more bounces he would have scored, maybe a point to draw, maybe a goal to win.

In a match that was lost by a point, two misses from dead in front were fatal. In my view there was a selection blunder. In the first match of the year, I watched a young second-year player called Peter McKenna kick 11 goals straight, then a point, then another goal – 12 goals one for the day. This was remarkable. However, over the next few weeks, McKenna struggled and was eventually dropped. He played for the reserves and did well and earned a right to be promoted back into the seniors but the Collingwood match committee didn’t think so. On Grand Final day Peter McKenna was playing for the reserves. He kicked 5 goals and his fifth goal put Collingwood in front by a point. The siren was about to go, Richmond reserves went into attack and some kid who no one had heard of called Royce Hart marked the ball more than 50 yards out from goal. He coolly lined it up and kicked the goal that won Richmond the Reserves premiership. In the seniors’ game Doug Searle was centre half forward and Ian Graham was full forward. They had very little influence on the game. Perhaps Peter McKenna playing in the seniors that day could have made all the difference.

One more thing: in 2022, Collingwood lost the qualifying final to Geelong by a goal. When the siren went a few exhausted Collingwood players sat down on the ground. The coach Craig McRae went around and asked those players to get up. Later he said on television, ‘We may have lost today, but we are not losers. Lying down after a loss is what losers do.’ Unfortunately, and I say this respectfully, in my opinion Bobby Rose did not have a winner’s mentality. The close loss in 1964, the one point loss in 1965 and then the one point loss in 1966 contributed to the term first coined by Lou Richards – ‘Colliwobbles’. The legend of the Colliwobbles would grow and prosper for some time yet.

In this project, I am describing 17 Grand Finals. I attended each one of those Grand Finals, except for 1960 when I was too young (although I recall listening to Norman Banks on the radio) and 1966 which was Yom Kippur. However, I did watch the replay of the 1966 Grand Final on television and I have seen it several times since. If I found Rohan Rivett’s remarks to be unsettling and unfair, I found Ted Whitten’s inane barracking to be dreadful. In the last quarter as St Kilda led by a point, he shouted out, ‘Hit the boundary! Hit the boundary!’ The man commentating Mike Williamson asked, ‘Can St Kilda win its first premiership?’ Ted Whitten shouted with glee, ‘They’ve got it!’ This was hardly Bruce McAveny and Dennis Cometti. Ted Whitten’s barracking was a disgrace.

Some years later, when Bobby Rose retired he was asked what his greatest disappointment was in football. His answer was losing the 1966 Grand Final. Sadly, he had quite a lot failures from which to choose.

[Kingsofclutch]

Losing McKenna to Carlton because they offered 25K and we wouldn't offer more than 20K cost us the 77 flag too.

[David]

Great write-up, Harrysz. I thought I knew a bit about this grand final and have even watched some clips on YouTube, but a lot of this was totally new to me – all fascinating information.

(What's the 11B refer to, by the way?)

[Pies4shaw]

[warburton lad]

I was interested to read what Harrysz wrote about missing the 1966 Grand Final due to the Jewish Feast of Yom Kippur.

StKilda had a very fine player called Ian Synman who chose to play in the Grand final and not observe a very important Jewish Feast Day- regrettably for the Magpies, Ian Synman (a devout Jew), played a very fine game.

The main difference for the Magpies was the brilliant tagging job of St Kilda player John Bingley on Des Tuddenham; whilst Tuddy kicked three goals, he was well held.

Poor goal kicking proved extremely costly for the Magpies and our final attack- where Tuddenham had 50 metres clear in front of him but rushed a kick forward, may well have cost us at least the chance to draw.

Sigh...

[Kingsofclutch]

[Harrysz]

Thanks David and Warburton Lad for your compliments. By the way WL, Yom Kippur is a 25 hours strict fast so it's not accurate to refer to it as a "feast". Sorry to be pedantic.

[RudeBoy]

Thanks Harrysz. A great read.

[Harrysz]

Hi David.
When I started this I wrote that there had been 16 Grand Finals since 1958.
Half way through I realised that there'd actually been 17 Grand Finals. So rather than re-numbering everything I put in two #11s - A and B.

[lazzadesilva]

[piedys]

Rightfully Essendon would be kicking themselves they let this one slip in the Prelim; but I guess there's at least one team who underperforms late in the finals, when expected to win, every season?

[Kingsofclutch]

[Boot]

[Kingsofclutch]

[lazzadesilva]