Grand Final #12 - 1981

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

This one was the straw that broke the camels back. The one thing I could always lean on as a kid was the fact we had won the most Premierships. Not only had we just lost our 4th grand final in 5 years, carlton had just equalled us on 13 flags. I had nothing

[Pies4shaw]

^ Except a hiopeless coach to sack!

[Pies4shaw]

I get your point, but not many of those would have been open cheque books, more like open petty cash tin. Most were recycled role players or gap fillers rather than stars, Williams and (until injury) Edwards being the obvious exceptions.

I think your're underselling Michael Taylor a little, there - he was a two-time premiership player for Norwood before he joined us, played 13 times for SA, had 4 (of his 6 - he got another 2 when he went home) best and fairests for Norwood and was their club captain when we recruited him. He was held in such high esteem at Norwood that they renamed their B&F after him in 2018. All up, he played 359 games of club footy - 267 for Norwood and 92 for Collingwood. It's fair to say he would have played 250 for us if he'd come across when he was a kid.

Also, along with the magnificent Gary Wilson, Irwin and Allan were basically the Fitzroy centreline in those days. In the 1979 elimination final against us, for example, Allan and Irwin had, between them, about every 5th disposal Fitzroy managed. These were huge recruits, albeit a couple may not have lived up to their reputations.

The 1981 team boasted Ross Brewer (174 games at Melbourne and Collingwood, mostly as a HFF or decoy FF, at an average of 1.7 goals per game), Craig Davis (195 goals for us in 3 seasons, playing either as a FF or, in 1981, as a HFF, with Daicos on the other side), Graeme Allan (see above), Ricky Barham, Peter Daicos (76 goals from the HFF that year), Warick Irwin (see above), Kink, Stan Magro (who'd been brought over in the middle of the 1977 season - I was there at his first game against Fitzroy at the Junction Oval), McCormack, Picken, Ray Shaw, Tony Shaw (who had the second-moost disposals in the league in 1981, behind only Featherby), Peter Moore, Michael Taylor and Mark Williams, as well as Ray Byrne, Ian Cooper, Craig Stewart, David Twomey, Noel Lovell and Stuart Atkin as the "bottom 6". If the present Coach could field a team with all that talent, I doubt it would ever lose.