The 1981 VFL Grand Final was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

game contested between the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Mel ...

and

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club w ...

, held at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadiu ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on 26 September 1981. It was the 85th annual

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

of the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

, staged to determine the

premiers Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

for the

1981 VFL season The 1981 VFL season was the 85th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 28 March until 26 September, and comprised a ...

. The match, attended by 112,964 spectators, was won by Carlton by a margin of 20 points, marking that club's 13th premiership victory. This match was the last one where these two great rivals clashed in a grand final.

Background

It was a rematch of the two teams that competed in the 1979 Grand Final, which Carlton had won by just five points. Collingwood was searching for its first flag since winning the

1958 VFL Grand Final The 1958 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Melbourne Football Club and Collingwood Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 20 September 1958. It was the 61st annual grand final of the Vic ...

. They had appeared in three of the last four Grand Finals, losing them all. At the conclusion of the

home and away season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

, Carlton had finished first on the VFL ladder with 17 wins and 5 losses. Collingwood had finished second, also with 17 wins, but with an inferior percentage. In the finals series leading up to the Grand Final, Collingwood was defeated by

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

by 14 points in the Qualifying Final before defeating

Fitzroy Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: **FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beau ...

by 1 point in the First Semi-Final. They advanced to the Grand Final after beating Geelong by 7 points in the Preliminary Final. Carlton had a much easier finals run, defeating Geelong in the Second Semi-Final by 40 points to progress straight through to the Grand Final.

Match summary

Captained by

Mike Fitzpatrick Michael Gerard Fitzpatrick (June 28, 1963 – January 6, 2020) was an American attorney and politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing from 2005 to 2007 and 2011 to 2017. He was fir ...

, Carlton scored the last six goals of the game to emerge victorious. At one stage late in the third quarter Collingwood led by 21 points after a burst of five unanswered goals, before Carlton scored two late goals to go into three quarter time just 9 points behind. Some infighting in the Collingwood huddle resulted in Carlton taking all the momentum into the last quarter. Ken Sheldon kicked the opening goal of the final quarter to get Carlton within four points and then

Rod Ashman Rodney Ashman (born 3 December 1954) is a former Australian rules footballer who represented in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Playing primarily in the forward pocket, Ashman was a member of Carlton's famous "Mosquito Fleet" which was ...

kicked one to put them in front. Collingwood laid down, scoring just two points in the quarter and goals from

Mark Maclure Mark Maclure (born 14 July 1955) is a former Australian rules footballer in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Originally from New South Wales club East Sydney, Maclure was recruited by Carlton and made his senior VFL debut in Round 13, ...

and David McKay sealed the win for Carlton. The

Norm Smith Medal The Norm Smith Medal is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best on ground in the Grand Final of the Australian Football League (AFL). Prior to 1990 the competition was known as the Victorian Football ...

was awarded to Carlton's

Bruce Doull Alexander Bruce Doull (born 11 September 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Carlton Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Wearing guernsey number 11, he was nicknamed the "Flying Doormat" due to the ...

for being judged the best player afield. Collingwood captain Peter Moore famously threw away his runner-up medal after this game in a show of disgust. This was his fifth appearance in a Grand Final, all without success. This defeat gave Collingwood their third successive Grand Final loss and their fourth in five years. It was the final grand final loss of the infamous "Colliwobbles." They next appeared in a Grand Final nine years later, winning the

1990 AFL Grand Final The 1990 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Collingwood Football Club and the Essendon Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 6 October 1990. It was the 94th annual grand fin ...

. The win was Carlton's 13th premiership, drawing them level with Collingwood for the most premierships in VFL history—a record that Collingwood had held outright since 1929. The grand final was the final one played with the old MCG scoreboard. It was given to

Manuka Oval Manuka Oval is a sporting venue in Canberra, the capital of Australia. It is located in Griffith, in the area of that suburb known as Manuka. Manuka Oval has a seating capacity of 13,550 people and an overall capacity of 16,000 people, although ...

in 1982 after the MCG installed a new colour video scoreboard. The old scoreboard still resides at Manuka Oval today. It was one of the last (if not the last) times the players swapped guernseys after the grand final (although not all players did.)

Teams

Goal kickers

References

* ''The Official statistical history of the AFL 2004''

External links

Blueseum page on the Grand Final
{{DEFAULTSORT:1981 Vfl Grand Final VFL/AFL Grand Finals

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