mikeh wrote: As promised here is my take on the 1984 season. It is written from an unashamed Swans point of view. I wrote it a few years back.....
Sorry its a bit long but Swans fans may enjoy reading it....
The year started off pretty slowly for Swans with only 1 win in the first 3 rounds. None of these games were at Bassendean. For some reason or other we gave away our first home game of the season to Bunbury which was definitely to East Perths advantage and they beat us by 14 points. I watched the game on ABCTV and the boys were very rusty. Then we had a game at Claremont, which we won comfortably. It looked like the Tigers were not going to be as dominant as in previous years.
Round 3 was another Swans home game that was played at Subiaco. South Fremantle beat us by 35 points. Swans were struggling to get their teamwork going at this stage and the motivation seemed to be low. Round 4 got us back on track with a 86 point victory over Perth at Bassendean.
Round 5 was a big day in the life of Swans , it was the official celebration of their 50th anniversary. The first game that Swans played in the WAFL was against East Fremantle at Fremantle Oval in April 1934. The new team played magnificently to only lose by a few points. So on April 28 1984, Swans met East Fremantle this time at Bassendean. It was a fine occasion with over 11000 turning up for the festivities. All the surviving members of the 1934 team were invited as well as a range of players from the 50 year history. There were dinners and social events planned for later in the day, but firstly there was a game of football to be won. East Fremantle had started the season very well, winning three of their first four matches and they very nearly spoiled the party on this day. A desperately close last quarter where the Sharks demonstrated that they were going to be right in the hunt for finals. Swans however hung on to win by 5 points much to the relief of all of us supporters. The evening celebrations would have been a bit muted no doubt if the game had gone the other way.
Subiaco was another team that was on the improve and Swans as the double reining premiers were now the hunted team for all improving teams. In round 6 Subiaco gave us a hell of a game at Subiaco Oval before we again scraped home by one goal. Then in round 7, West Perth came to Bassendean and gave us another working over, this time we didn’t survive it, losing by 6 points.
It was hard to know what to make of the season so far, 4 wins and 3 losses. Unlike previous seasons though, 3 of the wins had been by the barest margin which indicated to me that Swans had come back to the field somewhat.
In rounds 8 and 9 Swans appeared to get somewhat back on track with wins over East Perth ( 54 points) and another nailbiter at Bassendean against South. Again the game was in doubt till late in the last quarter before we hung on by 8 points. Certainly the neutral supporters who wanted to see a competitive game were getting value from Swans in the first half of the season.
That was reinforced in round 10 when Claremont came to Bassendean and the game was a hard fought scrap all day in front of a foundation day holiday crowd of 11000. It really would have been fair to both teams for it to be a draw but fairness and footy sometimes don't go together and we lost by a measly point.
A 6 – 4 win loss record became 6-5 the next week when Perth handed us an unexpected defeat at Lathlain. There had been a weeks bye after the previous round and Perth caught us on the hop and totally deserved their victory. Not for the first time this season, I started to wonder if the golden era was over. East Fremantle Oval was probably the worst place to go to try and get out of a slump at this stage. And so it proved. The Sharks demonstrated why they were finals contenders by handing us a 36 point defeat. It was turning out to be a very even season with only Perth not really in the hunt for a finals berth.
So at 6- 6 we were in a precarious position and our finals prospects were looking bleak. It was at this stage that I imagine that Todd may have had a heart to heart with his players ( or probably more a figurative mass poke in the chest) to share a few home truths and to find out how many of them wanted to play in a triple premiership team. Whatever he did it worked a treat because after round 12, swans won 8 of their last 9 qualifying matches, which was enough in the even season to put them on top of the ladder. It was amazing, they had won 4 less games than the ladder topping team of 1980.
The only off day they had was a 34 point loss to West Perth at Leederville, when the falcons were making a late season run at the finals, which Swans finally killed off in round 21.
The only victories of early 80s standards were a 105 point thrashing of Subiaco at Bassendean and a surprise 72 point victory over Claremont who were starting to build towards the finals. This was the last caning of Subiaco for quite some time as the lions were on the rise and would be in the finals in 1985. The Claremont game in Round 16 was more significant as we played the type of power football which I had now become accustomed to over the past 5 years. It also convinced me that Swans still had the ability and motivation to go all the way again.
The Claremont game was also one of Brett Huttons best ever games Brett had lived a bit in the shadow of other Swans forwards and he had also had a lot of injuries, but this day he benefitted from the lace up delivery from the classy midfield. He ended up with 83 goals for the season.
During July there was another State of Origin Tuesday game against Victoria. Todd was the coach of WA being the premiership coach. WA won another high scoring thriller by 4 points 21- 16 to 21-12. The game was notable for the debut of a young Victorian called Gary Ablett who was to go on to be one of the greatest players of the modern era.
Some of the victories that Swans had over the last section of the season were all hard fought and in retrospect gave Sswans a good foundation for tough finals to come. One highlight was a 6 goal victory over the Sharks at Bassendean which was revenge for the round 12 defeat and a good psychological blow for the finals.
The top four ended up being Swans, East Fremantle, Claremont and East Perth. South Fremantle lost their way towards the end of the season after looking certain to make it earlier and Subiaco were the big improvers.
As expected Claremont beat East Perth in the 1st semi. I had brought a season pass to the 3 tier stand for all the finals, so I sat impassively in my seat watching this game, getting to know the people sitting next to me, a couple of sweet old ladies who were Perth supporters. They explained to me that they had brought the tickets at the start of the season in the hope that Perth had made the finals.
When it was obvious that Perth couldn’t make the finals, they decided to come anyway to enjoy the footy. We had a nice chat on the day of the first semi but the ladies saw a different side of me the next week when swans were playing. Cursing the Swans players, cursing the opposition and cursing the umpire. It was pretty non stop. You have to hand it to these ladies though, towards the end of the finals they started bringing me tea and biscuits and started barracking for Swans despite the bulging veins in the back of my neck! Hopefully they weren’t intimidated into doing that!
Swans were ambushed in the 2nd semi by a very committed East Fremantle led by Ron Alexander. Swans had won 7 in a row to that stage so there may have been an element of complacency in the performance, but what the Sharks did was to be very physical with Swans, not in a dirty way, but in terms of their aggression on the ball. Of course I yelled and screamed that we were getting a raw deal from the umpires but on reflection even I would have to admit that many of the free kicks were given because East Fremantle were more ferocious in their attack on the ball. When we got the ball, East Fremantle tackled and bumped and gave us no space at all. The result was a 26 point victory which was closer than it seemed watching the game.
We then had to play Claremont in the preliminary final and I thought that the Tigers may have noted East Fremantle’s approach and would try the same. At the start of the game the Tigers were more pacey and Swans were struggling to keep up. At this stage I was thinking that we were going to go out in straight sets. We were about 20 points down in the first half and this was another time where Swans took a deep breath and found their desire again. Boucher had been playing injured and he took his place in this game, which ultimately cost him a place in the grand final. Swans overran Claremont to the extent that in the last quarter the result was inevitable, Swans ended up winning by 21 points.
So it was the Swans and Sharks in the Grand Final. We had the advantage of experience in big games, but it was a matter of how much did we want it. East Fremantle must have planned their strategy around the same physical approach of the 2nd semi and they came out pumped up. However this time they went a step too far as early in the game, Kevin Taylor, a moustached rover who was to change to Swans the next year, flattened one of the Swans players in the centre in front of the umpire. This resulted in a free kick and a swans goal. This incident focussed Swans and distracted the Sharks and the boys started landing goals from everywhere.
Don Holmes was playing the quarter of his life and East Fremantle appeared powerless to stop it. There was a slight breeze blowing up to our end but nothing that justified the score at quarter time of 10 – 4 to 0-3. It was surreal as I thought that we had won the flag in one quarter. I was dead wrong, the quarter time break changed the whole momentum of the game and the Sharks started piling on the goals in the 2nd quarter, Ken Marshall got one for Swans at the other end but a goal right on the siren got EF back within 2 goals. It was amazing there was no gale but of the 20 goals in first half, 19 of them were at the Subiaco end.
The 3rd quarter started off in worrying fashion as East Fremantle continued on where they had left off at half time. They kicked a few goals at the Perth end and it got to a point when the Sharks came within 1 point. At this stage I could scarcely believe it. I was starting to imagine the headlines the next morning ‘’Swans blow a 10 goal lead’’ they would scream. The issue for East Fremantle was that they had used so much energy getting back into the game they were tiring, I’ll bet they regretted Taylor's brain fade in the first part of the game. Swans gradually reasserted their authority and midway through the last quarter I relaxed again.
So the black and whites of 1982 - 84 equalled the feats of the 1961 – 63 team, it seemed we only won our flags in threes. The beer tasted just as good that night as the previous two Septembers. Barry Kimberley won the Simpson medal. I’m sure he was glad that he had transferred over from Perth.
Absolutely brilliant summary Mike and brought back some great memories for me especially the Claremont game at Subi Oval when my hero at the time Brent Hutton kicked 11 majors.
Also that bruising 2nd Semi vs EF unfortunately saw quite a few Swans boys get injured from memory thus missing out on a Premiership Medal- Peter Ware, Kim Hetherington, Leigh Brenton, Chris Allen all missed the GF plus Roo Boucher's knee gave out in the Prelim Final but it gave an opportunity to youngsters like Kevin Caton, Joe Ahmat, Gavin Outridge, Shane Renfree & Mick Johns who took it with both hands!
