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The 1927 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football
game contested between the Collingwood Football Club and
Richmond Football Club, held at
the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 1 October
1927. It was the 31st annual Grand Final of the
Victorian Football League,
staged to determine the premiers for
the 1927 VFL
season.
|
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
Final |
| Collingwood |
0.1 |
2.6 |
2.9 |
2.13 (25) |
| Richmond |
0.4 |
0.4 |
0.7 |
1.7 (13) |
| Best |
Collingwood |
S Coventry, Makeham, Rowe, F Murphy, Clayden, Wilson,
Beveridge, H Collier |
|
Richmond |
B McCormack, Geddes, Hayes, Fincher, Harris, Rudolph,
O’Halloran |
| Goals |
Collingwood |
G Coventry (2) |
|
Richmond |
Fincher |
Background
Before the 1927 season, Collingwood had last won a premiership
in 1919, and had suffered Grand Finals losses in 1920, 1922, 1925
& 1926. Great dissatisfaction brewed amongst the supporters,
and at a meeting at the Collingwood Town Hall in March 1927 the
committee was put under enormous pressure to end the 7 year
premiership ‘drought’. In a remarkable response, the committee
sacked the in-form Charlie Tyson as captain and player, and
gave the captaincy to Syd Coventry. Coventry went on to win the
1927 Brownlow
Medal and the inaugural Copeland Trophy. In the 1927
home-and-away season Collingwood had won 15 of its 18 matches to
finish top of the table, with Richmond next, a game behind. Geelong and Carlton made up the Four. In the
Semi-Finals, Richmond had narrowly beaten Carlton, while
Collingwood thrashed Geelong by 66 points and went into the Grand
Final as favourites.
Match
summary
Heavy rain before and during the match made for atrocious
conditions on the day. While Richmond tried to pick up the ball,
Collingwood followed the instructions of coach Jock McHale by “marking
on the chest, not out in front” and “kicking the ball off the
ground wherever possible”. With Syd Coventry impassable in defence,
Gordon "Nuts"
Coventry booted 2 goals in the 2nd quarter, to take his season
tally to 97 and have Collingwood lead by 14 points at half time.
Both goals came from mistakes by the Richmond backmen. In the 3rd
quarter Richmond responded with a fierce attack on the football and
the man – Collingwood’s Syd Coventry, Beveridge and Rumney were knocked out in the opening
minutes – but the Tigers could not convert the effort into a score,
and the Magpies maintained their 14 point margin at 3-quarter time.
Richmond’s Fincher
scored a goal early in the last quarter but the Collingwood defence
held, with the Magpies winning by 12 points at the final bell.
The whole game yielded an aggregate score of only 3.20 (38).
This was the lowest-scoring game in the VFL since Round 5 1900, and
it would ultimately be the lowest scoring game (Grand Final or
otherwise) in the 20th century, and is also yet to be bettered in
the 21st century. It is the lowest aggregate score in any VFL/AFL
Grand Final, Collingwood's 2.13 (25) is the lowest winning score in
a Grand Final, and Richmond's 1.7 (13) is the lowest score in a
Grand Final.
"The
Machine"
The 1927 flag was Collingwood’s sixth premiership victory, they
went on to win the next three Grand Finals. In winning four
premierships in a row from 1927-1930 they set a record that has not
been equaled to date. The teams from this era became known as “The
Machine” for the teamwork, efficiency and effectiveness with which
they played.
Teams
See also
References
- Atkinson, Graeme: The Complete Book of AFL Finals,
1996. ISBN 1875971475
- McFarlane, Glenn and Roberts, Michael: The Machine - The
Inside Story of Football's Greatest Team, 2005. ISBN
0958641234
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