Bloody Covid-19. Mind you, given that I don’t have a job or a missus I do heaps of sweet bugger all anyway. During the afternoon I cleaned the pipes and then in the day dream that followed I began thinking about our 1989 season. I was only four at the time and know very little of it. Looked it up. There’s a few interesting things I discovered:
Didn’t know we finished 2nd on the ladder.
Or that 2 of our 5 losses came against a mid-ladder Sydney.
We kept the Eagles to a solitary goal?
We won a different game by kicking just three of our own?
And belting grand finalists Geelong in a qualifyer only to receive a bigger hiding from them 2 weeks later…what’s up with that?
Could Bradley Plain have ever won a Brownlow?
1989 sounds like a fascinating, and perhaps disappoining season. If you have any thoughts,
stories or anecdotes about the '89 Dons you’d like to share with your fellow blitzers, among them
a bloke who was only a nipper back then… Step right up.
Might have to phone in a pizza tonight 'cos I sure can’t be f**ked cooking.
By 1989 we won more games in Perth against the Eagles at their then home ground the WACA…then they moved to Subiaco Oval and our horrific record in WA began.
I was living in the Halls of Residence at Monash Uni.
I had a mad Cats supporting mate up the end of my corridor.
The finals arrived.
After the first Geelong game, I plastered her room with red and black and all the newspaper headlines about the win.
After the second Geelong game, I had a pretty big night to drown my sorrows. I woke up to find the floor of my dorm room covered one inch deep in kitty litter mixed with stinky cat food - the wet type.
We had a game against Footscray at Windy Hill, we kicked 3 goals on an absolute quagmire and still won! 89-91 was the last hurrah for the nucleus of the 84-85 team. Guys like Foulds, Walsh, Vander Haar, Duckworth, Daisy Williams retired, Madden, TD and Watson followed not long after with Timmy coming back of course in ‘93. The year or so prior Hawker and Nobby Clarke departed. It made what Sheeds did in ‘92 and ‘93, to rebuild with young players and then win a flag with those kids, some of the veterans still around from the glory days in the mid-80s and also some of the guys that were between the kids and the veterans all the more impressive.
Brad Plain was the quintessential enigma. He really had all the ability but from what I’ve heard around the traps didn’t have the application. He was the Damian Cupido of the late-80s/early-90s.
My take was that Hawthorn set us up for the Geelong thrashing. Dermie took Van Der Haar out mid game and we copped a few other injuries. Plain went missing as usual.
Against Geelong in the prelim, Salmon rocked up with his gear but was a late withdrawal and Vanders also missed.
Sheeds had to go with Sporn and Micky Werner up forward - enough said.
Antrobus did something stupid in the second quarter and copped a 50 metre. They Hawks took out Daisy early in the first.
Got killed in the middle against Couch, Buddha and Bairstow. No one could go with Ablett- he kicked a bag.
This is the game against Collingwood at VFL Park. Both sides high on the ladder at the time and was anticipated as one of the games of the season, however it was an anti-climax with the Bombers winning by 10+ goals. Some good Brad Plain highlights in this, Fish kicked 5 and also marvel the glory that is the Tony Antrobus mullet!
Andrew Underwood debuted for us that year and as a youngster I thought he was going to be the greatest player of all time because of his physique. Didn’t work out that way.
Probably. Sheeds rested a heap of players for the 4x Daniher testimonial at Moorabbin.
By the time we played Collingwood there were players who hadn’t fronted for 4 weeks.
Even though we thrashed West Coast in the Prelim there was something off.
Pies got the week break and were switched on.
Still reckon Fish got a raw deal from the umps.
