The legendary 1977 Grand Final
Roar Guru By Jason Cave, 8 Aug 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
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- 1977 AFL Grand Final, AFL, Brownlow Medallist, Collingwood Magpies, North Melbourne Kangaroos, Phil Manassa, preliminary final, Ron Barassi, Tom Hafey
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The 1977 AFL Grand Final between North Melbourne and Collingwood is regarded as one of the most dramatic grand finals in VFL/AFL history.
The Kangaroos were appearing in their fourth straight Grand Final under master coach Ron Barassi, while Collingwood had come from wooden spooners in 1976 to make the Grand Final under new coach Tom Hafey.
The VFL allowed a live telecast of the 1977 Grand Final into Melbourne and throughout Australia and the world through the Seven Network.
North were missing dual Brownlow Medallist, Keith Greig, while the Magpies were still coming to terms of the suspension of key Collingwood player, Phil Carman, who was suspended for two matches by the tribunal.
North won their way into the Grand Final after first losing to Hawthorn in the qualifying final, but bounced back to beat Richmond in the first semi and then Hawthorn in the preliminary final.
Collingwood on the other hand won by just two points in the second semi-final against the Hawks.
North got off to a good start, leading 4.4 to 1.5 at quarter time, with Phil Baker kicking three goals.
But in the second quarter, Collingwood reduced the lead to just two points, thanks to some bad errors by the North defence.
The Magpies then went into overdrive to lead by 27 points at three-quarter time, with North not managing to score a goal, during the second and third quarter, with Arnold Briedis the chief offender.
But just as he had done seven years before in the epic 1970 Grand Final, Barassi made the moves that turned the game on its head by switching David Dench and Daryl Sutton to the forward line.
North got on with the job to such an effect they actually hit the lead with only minutes left.
Then Collingwood responded with a goal by Ross ‘Twiggy’ Dunne to level the scores, and they stayed level until the final siren.
North Melbourne ended up winning the replay by 27 points, with the major highlight the run and goal of Collingwood’s Phil Manassa.
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August 8th 2009 @ 8:55am
Pippinu said | August 8th 2009 @ 8:55am | Report comment
I recall that first ever live telecast – it felt like such a rare treat.
August 8th 2009 @ 9:55am
sheek said | August 8th 2009 @ 9:55am | Report comment
Ahhh, the memories. Old ‘t-shirt’ Hafey – what a coach, what a man!
August 8th 2009 @ 1:27pm
beaver fever said | August 8th 2009 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
I actually went as a young kid with my dad, it was the first VFL game i had seen live.
Got me hooked.
Obviously coming from interstate we could not attend the following week.
August 8th 2009 @ 2:01pm
Dave said | August 8th 2009 @ 2:01pm | Report comment
the Grand final replay is the first VFL game I saw. Watched it in black and white, very hard to work out who was who. SANFL grand finals weren’t shown to live till 1979. So watched the replay of Port v Glenelg the week before and also saw live of the Grand final replay St George v Parramatta on channel Two.
August 8th 2009 @ 6:33pm
Jason Cave said | August 8th 2009 @ 6:33pm | Report comment
Believe it or not, the VFL allowed a live telecast into Melbourne on two conditions: 1) that the game be sold out before giving permission to televise the game live (it still happens today); 2) that the commercial channels who are interested in televising game live (which was Seven and the ABC, Nine however was still planning for World Series Cricket, and Ten was doing the VFA) for a fee of $100,000. The then General Manager of Seven Melbourne, the late Ron Casey, tried to get the ABC to share the cost and do a joint telecast of the Grand Final, but the ABC didn’t have that sort of money. To the surprise of most people, Casey and the Seven Network decided to do it alone. And the result? A drawn game, and it rated a 53-one of the highest ratings programs in Australian TV history.
August 9th 2009 @ 3:26am
Steven Metzger said | August 9th 2009 @ 3:26am | Report comment
I just love how nobody remembers the replay practically at all.