CSM: Chapter 10.
10. Cakewalk …? Finishing top in the Final Five system was a massive advantage. All you had to do was win one final and you were into the Grand Final. That meant, as a grand finalist, you’d played one game in three weeks, whilst your opponent would’ve played three. Your side had a chance to rest and your players had additional time and less duress to recover from injuries. On the flip side, your opposition was going through the wringer, playing hard finals filled with pressure, the threat of elimination constantly looming over them. It was brilliant, and the way finals should work: finishing top should come with benefits no…
CSM: Chapter 9.
9. Good old Collingwood. It’s worth mentioning that Collingwood was eliminated from the 1981 Escort Cup by North Melbourne in a quarter-final. However, there was a vast indifference to the result – even the club itself seemed ambivalent, as if the tragedy (yes, it was a tragedy, damnit!) in the 1980 Grand Final had tarnished Collingwood’s approach to the night competition. Although there were some rough years which followed for the club, they didn’t seem to take the competition seriously again for another twenty years, by which time it was fast evolving into the spectacle of practise games it would become. So now it was only the real stuff, and…