1980 Season

[am Bays]

Okay given the 1979 season thread has gone a bit off track i thought it would be worth reflecting on past seasons from our memories.

Next season 1980.

My recollections was that we saw one of teh great SANFL teams Port Adelaide circa 1980: Ebert, Phillips, Abernethy, Evans, Curtis, Belton, Natt, Cunningham, Granger, Pathetic Oops I meant Faletic, Clkifford etc gee it was a great team. *Cough splutter Cough* Gee it hurts to say that.

Glenelg did its usual trick of that era challenegd the dominant side (was 2nd) from April through to July and then fell in a hole as it bowed out of the fianls in straight sets a la 1978.

norwood came home with a wet sail - like 1978 but this time feel at teh final hurdle and sturt were consistant all year.

Spelly any unusual stas from that year??

[Adelaide Hawk]

norwood came home with a wet sail - like 1978

Not exactly true. In 1980, Norwood began poorly with a new coach and list and took most of the season to get going. They didn't make the top 5 until round 18, and then worked their way through to the GF from the Elimination Final.

However, In 1978, Norwood were a settled team, started well, and were in the top 3 from rounds 3 to 22 where they finished the minor round 2nd. The only team to really trouble the Legs in 1978 was Sturt.

I recall Tim Evans broke Fred Phillis' record for goals kicked in a season, and Russell Ebert winning his 4th Magarey Medal, despite not winning his club's B&F.

[am Bays]

I bow to your better knowledge AH on the 1978 season I'm going on the hazy recollections of a 7 year old...

[Adelaide Hawk]

I bow to your better knowledge AH on the 1978 season I'm going on the hazy recollections of a 7 year old...

I felt sure you were going to add that a certain player won the Tassie Medal in 1980

[am Bays]

I bow to your better knowledge AH on the 1978 season I'm going on the hazy recollections of a 7 year old...

I felt sure you were going to add that a certain player won the Tassie Medal in 1980

Didn't think it needd to be said everyone knows it....

[rogernumber10]

As a Norwood man, I'm always sad to state that its my view the Port '80 team was the best SANFL team I saw over a complete year. Was one of the great footy years to watch as a kid though.
Port went 19-2 with a draw through the minor round and their percentage was 65, meaning they nearly doubled their opponents score as an average. they drew with Centrals in rd 1, lost to sturt by 2 pts at unley in rd 6 and lost to glenelg at the bay in rd 16 by 4 goals as their only hiccups.
Evans broke the league record with 134 goals in the minor round, and then dropped 10 in the second semi for good measure before finishing with 146.
Agius, Faletic and Cahill all topped 40 goals and were in the top 15 goal kickers in the league
Ebert wins another Magarey (while Michael Taylor was robbed) and you had the likes of Abernethy, Clifford, Kinnear, Williams, Cunningham around the ball and a defence led by Phillips, Sorrell, Giles etc.
Super team.

The three times we played in the minor round we lost by 108, 90 and 55 but somehow produced one of the great performances to only lose by 18 in the GF, even with kids like Walker, Dalwood etc playing because Neil Button was gone for the year.

Glenelg was outstanding that year, with a 19-3 split, but they were 8pct worse and while I don't think they could have won the flag, they certainly should have played off for it.

Because of the results in 79, the ridiculous thing was that Port/Glenelg only played twice before the finals, as did Port/Sturt, Norwood/Sturt, Norwood/Glenelg and Glenelg/Sturt.
SANFL sacrificed some serious crowds because of so few of the big four games that year, Despite that, there were still some amazing crowd tallies (many of them I was at)
22k for Torrens v Glenelg at Adelaide Oval
19k for Port v South at Footy Park
18k for Port/Glenelg first meeting
18k for Port/Torrens alberton
16k for Port/Central at footy park
17k for Port/Norwood at footy park
22k for Port/Sturt at footy park
16k for glenelg/Port at glenelg
16k for port/norwood at norwood

PS: That 1980 Reserves GF also featured a certain S Kernahan and C McDermott in the Bays side and an M Leslie in the Port team.

[Adelaide Hawk]

As a Norwood man, I'm always sad to state that its my view the Port '80 team was the best SANFL team I saw over a complete year.

Yes, it makes an interesting debate. IMHO, to take a season in isolation, I rank the 1983 West Adelaide and 1973 Glenelg teams right up there along side 1980 Port Adelaide.

[drebin]

Sadly (or gladly in this case) 1980 meant the end for the greatest of them all, Barrie Robran who would end his career after 201 games and the scars of "that knee injury".

I can vividly recall to this day his 199th game Norwood at FP which we got up and won and "God" was BOG. I can also remember KG's closing comments on the Football Inquest / Replay that night about Robran and how good he was.

His 200th at Prospect against Sturt was also a great day and as the football folklore would ensure - North won easily (56 points or thereabouts by memory). You have to wonder how a struggling North side of that era could lift itselfs in game like that because of the great man's milestone yet struggle to win only 7-8 games for the whole year??? Emotion no doubt!

His 201st and final game in the mud at Prospect was a game that Barrie always wishes he didn't play and because of his frustration that day (as well as getting flogged by the Bays) he decided to hang up the boots. In some ways he should have retired after his 200th and on a high after those years of torture and struggle after mid 1974 just to try and play 200 games.

[spell_check]

The 1980 season from a stats point of view was basically the domination by Port. There were a few things that come to mind apart from that however.

As I reported in this thread viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3485, the top team in consecutive weeks lost by 50 points plus. Only the 2nd time ever that had happened, and the third occured in 2006. You could still put that down to the domination by Port; the margins against other teams that finished in the five that year during the minor round were 108, 51, 90, 90, 63, 56 and 55 points. The two losses were to Sturt by 4 and Glenelg by 24.

The other match that Port gave up a premiership point was the drawn match to Central in Round 1. This was the 2nd year in a row that there was a drawn match in the opening round. (Torrens drew Central 14.14 each in 1979). The following year saw another drawn match in the opening round, Norwood drew Sturt 19.11 each.

.17% separated 3rd and 4th at the end of the minor round. This is the smallest margin to have decided either the minor premiership, the double chance or a finals spot in a final 5. The next closest is .48% between 3rd and 4th in 2005 (Port and North). A game and 1.3% separated Torrens and Sturt heading into the last round; and even at three quarter time there was still a .66% gap. Then Sturt set a number of records to make up that gap:
-Highest ever score in a quarter at Unley - 14.5 (89)
-Highest score kicked at Unley - 31.20 (206)
-Highest score in Round 22
-Highest quarter score against West by any team
-Biggest winning margin (123) by Sturt against West (broken in 1988)

The other records still stand, and it was the 4th highest score in a quarter by a team (now 6th). And that with Torrens losing to Glenelg by 20 points was enough to claim 3rd place for Sturt.

The highest score kicked against Central at Elizabeth occured in this year, West Torrens kicking 25.18 (168) in Round 18. This has since been equalled by Port in 1990 (26.12 in Rd 1). The 11.7 scored in the third quarter still stands as the 2nd highest against Central in a quarter at Elizabeth.

The highest score kicked at Football Park was scored by Port in Round 3. 37.21 (243) to Woodville 13.4 (82). This lasted for 4 years until South kicked 39.16 (250) to Woodville 19.14 (128). The margin of 161 points is an equal record for Football Park.

One of the quirks in 1979 was that Port polled the least amount of Magarey Medal votes, yet still won the flag. 1980 made up for that, with a record 213 votes (under the double 3-2-1 system). The adjusted 106.5 votes remains as the record tally.

[oldtimer2]

Norwood's grand final performance was of immense character as it outplayed the hot premiership favourite Port Adelaide for more than three quarters until Stephen Clifford ( from memory) was able to slip away from his imediate opponent to create goals in the last quarter.

Norwood had qualified from 5th place with 10 losses while Port totally dominated the competition and lost just twice. What if............

http://stores.lulu.com/southaustralianfootball

[Adelaide Hawk]

Norwood's grand final performance was of immense character as it outplayed the hot premiership favourite Port Adelaide for more than three quarters until Stephen Clifford ( from memory) was able to slip away from his imediate opponent to create goals in the last quarter.

Norwood had qualified from 5th place with 10 losses while Port totally dominated the competition and lost just twice. What if............

http://stores.lulu.com/southaustralianfootball

At one stage during the season, a spot in the top 5 seemed out of the question, but a late run to finals saw Norwood in some form, even though a 55 loss to Port just prior to the finals suggested we would only make up the numbers.

However, finals are a different game, and impressive wins over Torrens, Glenelg and Sturt saw Norwood enter the GF with tons of confidence. Even though Port looked far superior on paper, Norwood left nothing on the park, and if you can ever be pleased with a Grand Final loss, that was the one.

I still maintain if Port didn't have Phillips and Abernethy that day, we may have stolen it, but Port were the deserving winner. Just too good when it mattered most.

Back at the club that night, you could have been forgiven for thinking we had won it. Packed rooms, plenty of celebrating, club song being sung over and over. Neil Balme gave a talk, almost apologetic to the crowd, but then the crowd broke into a chorus of "Balmey, Balmey".

The look on Balmey's face was priceless. He had come from the successful Richmond 70s and really couldn't understand how anyone could be happy after a loss.

[Ash59]

In addition to the big crowds Spell_check has listed, there were 15 odd thousand at the Round 1 draw between Centrals and Port which I believe is the record crowd at Elizabeth. I still regard that as the best atmosphere of any minor round game I have seen involving the Dogs.

Unfortuntely our season didn't live up to the promise of the previous year. Jonas and Duckworth both carried injuries most of the year and that had a big impact on performance. And its fair to say a few other clubs were much improved...

[spell_check]

In addition to the big crowds Spell_check has listed, there were 15 odd thousand at the Round 1 draw between Centrals and Port which I believe is the record crowd at Elizabeth. I still regard that as the best atmosphere of any minor round game I have seen involving the Dogs.

Unfortuntely our season didn't live up to the promise of the previous year. Jonas and Duckworth both carried injuries most of the year and that had a big impact on performance. And its fair to say a few other clubs were much improved...

It was rog who had those crowds listed.

The 15,696 in Round 1 was a record for Elizabeth, until the Rd 18 1984 crowd between the same clubs broke it (16,029).

The full list of 15,000+ crowds in 1980 are:
22,709 Torrens vs Glenelg Adelaide Rd 4
22,116 Port vs Sturt Football Park Rd 15
19,556 Port vs South Football Park Rd 4
18,703 Port vs Torrens Alberton Rd 8
18,656 Port vs Glenelg Football Park Rd 7
17,667 Port vs Norwood Football Park Rd 11
16,854 Port vs Central Football Park Rd 10
16,373 Glenelg vs Port Glenelg Rd 16
16,309 Port vs Norwood Norwood Rd 20
15,696 Central vs Port Elizabeth Rd 1

[am Bays]

Gee Spelly two games in rd 4 for a total of 40 000, what were teh other three games totals???

They must have gone close to over 60 000 for the round.

[spell_check]

Those two matches were on ANZAC Day, the next day (Saturday)
@ Football Park - Central vs Norwood 10,362
@ Richmond - West vs Sturt 5,562
@ Prospect - North vs Woodville 4,456
The total was 62,645.

[rogernumber10]

As some more completely random points from 1980, John Platten kicked 38 goals in the Under 17s (fifth best) and also 50 goals in the Under 19s (seventh best) for Centrals that year, putting him in the top goalkickers for two separate comps. I can't imagine that happened too often. Ian Willmott and Greg Thomas were two of the other guys in the top five in the 17s and Dean Renfrey was one of the top seven in the 19s. Craig Bradley kicked three in the Under19s Grand Final with a young Duncan Fosdike starring the Legs, and Richard Neagle, while Peter Motley was Sturt's leading goalkicker with Willmot in their GF victory in the 17s.

[Punk Rooster]

As a Norwood man, I'm always sad to state that its my view the Port '80 team was the best SANFL team I saw over a complete year.

Yes, it makes an interesting debate. IMHO, to take a season in isolation, I rank the 1983 West Adelaide and 1973 Glenelg teams right up there along side 1980 Port Adelaide.

& i'd throw in North's 1987 team

[Harry the Horse]

you would

[Punk Rooster]

you would

um, they did have a 19-3 record that year, & were a dominant force.
North the best team in 1987, daylight 2nd.

[Aerie]

1980 would be the last season that West Torrens would make the finals.