DOC wrote:Magellan wrote:robranisgod wrote:one journalist stated that it would be an injustice if Port didn't win the flag.
Didn't Oatey stick that headline up in the change rooms to inspire the players?
I think that's right.
This article appeared in “The News” newspaper on Friday, September 24, 1976, the day before the grand final between Sturt and Port Adelaide.
Expert sporting analyst and commentator, Bruce McAvaney, would tell me in 2009 that Port Adelaide’s odds to win the ’76 grand final would have been “$1.25 or $1.28, hot favourites, a battle against all the odds”.
The headline alone begs a few questions: What role did this article play in catapulting the Double Blues to a historic win over the mighty Magpies? And, just how psychologically important was master-coach Jack Oatey’s speech to his charges the night before?
“The 1976 grand final win over Port Adelaide (by 41 points) was an unbelievable day” said Rick Davies in 2010. “Everything went according to plan. I remember the pre-grand final, Friday night speech with Jack in the ‘Blue Room’ (located in the Harry J. McKay Stand at Unley Oval). An article in The News suggested it would be an ‘injustice’ if Port lost the game. Jack had the article blown up all over the room”.
Named as a reserve that day alongside Richard Hill was 1974 McCallum Medal winner and 1975 Reserves Magarey Medallist, Phil Heinrich, who further explained how Oatey laid the psychological groundwork that planted the seed of unflinching belief into his team.
“Before a grand final we would always go into the Blue Room on the Friday night. Jack would walk in and relax everyone. He’d be laughing saying, “Ah, boys – you can smell it in the air can’t you?” It was that finals feeling. When we walked in that night he had the 20 names of every Sturt player on a board and the names of every Port Adelaide player on the board. We all sat there and he said, “Now, I just want to go through this Port Adelaide side. Can you tell me how many premierships Russell Ebert has played in?” He kept on going through the entire list like this.
Then he said, “Now, let’s go over to Sturt. “Baggy”, how many have you played in? Six? Sandy Nelson, how many have you played in? Six?” And on he went through the entire team and it was building up. And then it hit us. How can a team, even if they were hot favourites, who had won a handful of premierships between them beat a side that had won 40 premierships collectively? I walked away that night with no fear. We were going to win a grand final. What Jack did was make us believe we were going to win”.
Rick Davies’ 78-possession game that day may have won him, deservedly, best-on-ground status (as well as being the greatest individual performance in Australian Rules grand final history), but centre half-forward Robbert Klomp was a close second. A very close second. And he left no doubt in 2009 as to exactly who engineered the famous Double Blue victory in ’76.
“The night before the 1976 grand final, Jack Oatey gave one of the most inspirational talks I have ever been witness to. I still get goose bumps now when I think about that night. The night before we had a team meeting which only ever occurred before a grand final. Jack just laid it on the line. He went through position-by-position, player-by-player, nominating strengths, experience and success. By the end of it, he said, “Guys, how can you possibly believe we can lose this game? They are just no match for us!” Everyone was ready to run through brick walls that night. The game couldn’t come fast enough. We were so focused. We had so much confidence and belief. Port Adelaide never stood a chance”.
Jack Oatey, “The Little Master”, had done it again, just as he had against Port Adelaide in 1966, ’67, and ’68, as the Blues pummelled Port 17.14 (116) to 10.15 (75) in front of 66,897 fans (there was actually 78,000 there) at Football Park.
That day, one man made 20 men believe. And belief creates legends. Nothing is impossible.
And, whilst “The News” sports journalist Alan Shiell did concede in his grand final-eve article that “it would be foolhardy to believe that Port’s first title since 1965 would be a fait accompli (a foregone conclusion)”, he did further add that “this Port-Sturt confrontation is fit to compare with the greatest”.
The greatest, indeed.
Captain Paul Bagshaw would famously call it “Sturt’s finest hour”, and 41 years later, in 2017, Sturt would win the seemingly unwinnable yet again against their old Magpie foe, this time by a point, and this time on Jack’s old stomping ground, Adelaide Oval, under the watchful eye of an almighty stand named in his honour.
Sometimes, football is pure poetry.
We got ‘em again, Jack!
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