Hawthorn 12.10.82 d St Kilda 11.9.75

Coach: John Kennedy Snr
Captain: David Parkin

Backs: David Parkin (27), Kelvin Moore (15), Les Hawkin (18)
Half-backs: Ian Bremner (20), Norm Bussell (16), Robert Day (12)
Centres: Leon Rice (13), Geoff Angus (33), Des Meagher (30)
Half-forwards: Michael Porter (9), Alan Martello (14), Robert Keddie (2)
Forwards: Leigh Matthews (32), Peter Hudson (26), Kevin Heath (8)
Followers: Don Scott (23), Bruce Stevenson (34), Peter Crimmins (5)

Reserves: Ken Beck (4), Ray Wilson (10)

Goals: Keddie 4, Hudson 3, Crimmins 2, Matthews 1, Rice 1, Scott 1

Best Players: Crimmins, Keddie, Moore, Parkin, Rice, Scott

Umpires: Peter Sheales

Attendance: 118,192 (at MCG, Saturday, September 25, 1971)

Two of the toughest sides ever to play the game faced off in the 1971 Grand Final, as John Kennedy’s Hawthorn took on Allan Jeans’ St Kilda. Played in the rain, it was a brutal, grinding clash. A typically uncompromising opening half saw the Hawks trail by two points at half time.
 
The third quarter was all St Kilda as they piled on the pressure. As the game was slipping away from the Hawk’s grasp, wingman Leon Rice raised the Hawks’ hopes when he scored the only goal of the term. It cut the margin to 20 points at three quarter time and set the scene for one of the great Grand Final comebacks.

In the three-quarter-time huddle, Captain Don Scott demanded ‘we can still win this game’. Inspired by Scott’s power play in the ruck and with Leigh Matthews literally throwing himself at the ball, Hawthorn come storming home, kicking 7.3, to win by 7 points. The star was Bob Keddie who booted 4 final quarter goals, having been shifted to full forward.

Earlier in the game, Hawthorn’s champion full-forward Peter Hudson had kicked 3 goals to equal Bob Pratt’s 1934 record of 150 goals in the season.?However, Hudson had been the recipient of some particularly heavy treatment and was groggy and not his usual potent force, hence the Keddie move to full-forward.

While Hudson did get opportunities in the final term, his attempts to break the record foundered as first he kicked into the man on the mark and then out on the full from 30 yards out.