QUITE simply, Hawthorn was the dominant force in League football in the 1980s.

The Hawks won four premierships (1983, 1986 and 1988-89) from a record-equalling seven straight Grand Final appearances (1983-89). This was a dynasty to rival Melbourne's great era under Norm Smith (seven Grand Final appearances from 1954-60).

The Hawks' statistics in this era are phenomenal. In the 10 seasons of the 1980s, they won 176 of their 244 matches (better than seven wins for every 10 outings), and continued playing to a very high level during the first half of the 1990s, with a flag in 1991. Along the way they set a record of appearances in 13 consecutive finals series (1982-94).

Hawthorn finished on top of the ladder after the home and away series three times in the decade (1986 and 1988-89) and five other times was either second or third.

The Hawks won at least 15 of 22 home and away matches in a year eight times in the 1980s, including two 19-win seasons (1988-89), and they regularly compiled long winning streaks, including runs of nine, eight (twice) and seven on end. Only once over the decade - in 1980, when injuries decimated a squad made up mainly of seasoned veterans - did Hawthorn lose as many as four matches consecutively.

Remarkably, for eight straight seasons (from 1982-89, a neat 200 matches), the Hawks averaged more than 17 goals per game in home and away matches and finals. Sixteen goals per game is considered a superior outcome in the modern game.

Every successful football club can point to the deeds of key individuals in shaping what are essentially great teams. Indeed, Hawthorn in the 1980s had more than its share of highly skilled individuals, genuine champions of the game: Leigh Matthews, Peter Knights, Michael Tuck, Gary Ayres, Dermott Brereton, Robert DiPierdomenico, Jason Dunstall and John Platten are but a handful. All are members of the Australian Football Hall of Fame, with Matthews, captain of the 1983 premiership team, an inaugural legend of the Hall.

Very little can be written about Hawthorn football in the 1980s without referencing Allan Jeans, the coach of three of the club's 10 premierships (and the architect of the 1988 team run in his absence) and the only man to coach St Kilda to a premiership, in 1966. Not surprisingly, The Point of it All, the Saints' official history, describes Jeans as the club's "greatest coach".

There's a great irony, of course, in focusing on someone like Jeans as a way of explaining Hawthorn's success in the 1980s. Throughout his tenure (1981-90, with a year off in 1988 when he was recuperating from a serious illness), Jeans was always careful not to dwell too long on individuals - and hardly ever on himself - for he knew that success in a tough and ruthless environment could come about only with 'The Team' being the first priority.

Jeans was renowned for speaking only in clichés to the 'meed-ja', as he called it, but he did understand the media's importance. He rarely provided "good copy", but his quick wit, usually displayed in private or in off-the-record moments with reporters, provided a unique form of insight and sometimes entertainment for those privy to it.

The three keys to success, he would say, were having money, players and administration. In essence, Jeans believed a club required strong, clear-headed managers who understood the importance of investing in players. He believed he needed a deep playing squad that had the right balance of skill, discipline and grunt.

Naturally, he would underplay (or conveniently ignore) the critical role of a master coach, someone who was tactically aware of the strengths and weaknesses of his own team and the opposition; someone who understood what it took to motivate all types but especially those whose egos threatened to overwhelm their talent; someone who could represent his club and the game with dignity and respect.

Jeans was appointed coach at the end of the 1980 season in a challenging time for the club because an era was coming to an end. His appointment ended an unofficial policy of appointing coaches from within: Kennedy (from 1960), Graham Arthur (1964), Peter O'Donohue (1965), Kennedy again (from 1966-76), David Parkin from 1977-80).

President Ron Cook got to know Jeans well when they were Victorian selectors in the 1970s. His urgent pursuit of Jeans was partly sparked by the knowledge that Essendon and Fitzroy were also chasing his signature, with the Lions close to finalising an arrangement. (Jeans recently acknowledged that Hawthorn had approached him before the 1980 season to coach its reserves team.)

But Cook was relentless. Jeans met the Hawthorn committee and agreed to discuss the offer with his family. Another Cook phone call just after Jeans had returned home from meeting the committee helped him make up his mind. The arrangement was sealed with a handshake.

"I don't know what the real reason was," Jeans said in an interview with the club's magazine Hawk Talk several years ago when asked if he knew why Cook had been so determined to win his services. "They didn't say much that night. I must have fit the mould they wanted because I was low profile, which they like at Hawthorn."

Jeans also knew the importance of having trustworthy people around him, those who could provide counsel without fear or favour. He formed a strong bond with chairman of selectors Brian Coleman and it was Coleman, according to One for All: The Story of the Hawthorn Football Club, who would later convince Jeans it was time to retire from coaching.

Jeans was born in 1933 in Corryong, towards the mountains near the Murray River. He played his junior football at Tocumwal and then Finley, a little downstream and on the NSW side of the Murray River. Jeans trained with Carlton when he was 18 and was asked to play in the under-19s, but he returned home after struggling with city life.

He was back in Melbourne four years later, in 1955, when St Kilda guaranteed him at least six games and 100 pounds. He became a handy player with the Saints - his preferred description has long been "just an ordinary player". He appeared in 77 matches with one season as vice-captain, in 1959, the same year he was picked to represent Victoria.

In the last practice match in 1960 he suffered a rib cartilage injury. He failed to recover and was forced to retire mid-year, aged 26.

 "I was slow but I was reasonably strong and I had a good awareness about handball," he told Hawk Talk. "(St Kilda coach Allan) Killigrew really taught me about handball - the value of the offensive handball."

Jeans coached St Kilda from 1961-1976. He then sat out of club football for a few years but he still had the coaching bug. He remained involved in coaching by taking the reins of the NSW team, leading the state in a game against powerhouse Richmond in 1980.

Jeans walked into Glenferrie Oval knowing there would be fall-out from Parkin's departure; Parkin had been a true Hawks man, leading the club as captain of the 1971 premiership team and coach of the '78 premiership team. His relationship with key Hawks players had underpinned his tenure. Jeans was also faced with the threat of a players' strike over money.

They weren't matters that overly worried him. He was more concerned with assessing his squad and its ability to implement his preferred style of skilled, hard-running football. (In the late 1980s when Jeans had the Hawks playing the run-on brand to perfection, a European businessman watching his first football match was asked why he had quickly developed an affinity for the Hawks. "They're like a German machine - precise and unstoppable," he said.)

Jeans had a promising squad, with star veterans and a sprinkling of young talent. His main query was on the squad's skill. He wanted more emphasis on an expanded top-notch midfield to carry out his running style.

"My philosophy was to create the numbers and make the handball the best option in a difficult situation," he told Hawk Talk. "Change of direction was coming (back) in. (It was a tactic, incidentally, Kennedy had also implemented when he first took over.) If you're going to change direction on the backline and swing it around and come back down the other side, you're got to be very skilful," he said.

Jeans moved on several veterans and indicated to others that their time soon would be up. He found new roles for some, using them where they best suited the team. And he introduced young players to senior level only when he knew they were ready to handle the pressure and the expectations that followed.

One of Jeans's great strengths was his organisational ability, his capacity to plan and make the most of his time and resources. This was reflected in his approach to training. Optimum levels of fitness, strength and endurance were still critical, but equally important was the players' ability to make the best decision during play.

He placed an increased emphasis on match simulation at training, where players would "rehearse" what to do in various situations. This approach is the now norm at most AFL clubs, with Geelong in particular using it to effect. Jeans' philosophy was based on three key phases of play: when 'we' had the ball; when the opposition had it, and when it was in dispute.

On match day, according to Jeans, the team whose players made the best decisions - and the team with the most players winning their positions - would invariably win the match. He would often say that football was essentially a simple game.

The Hawks failed to reach their goal of playing in the finals in Jeans' first season, but played some impressive football and finished with 13 wins. As the directors indicated in the 1981 annual report, Jeans had certainly made his mark: "(Jeans) quickly gained the respect of all players and officials and set about his tasks in a tireless and efficient manner. Allan is always on hand to advise on and discuss any problem with players, and all appreciated his forthright approach to them, always putting the club before the individual."

Jeans understood people; working in a pub as a youngster in Finley had given him an insight into disparate personalities. "You have to know the audience you're talking to," he said.

Jeans based every decision on finding the best outcome for the whole - from selecting the team for a certain game, or setting common sense rules for road trips. And when individual players understood why a decision was being made or why a certain piece of advice was being given, they found the best outcome for the whole could also be the best outcome for them as individuals.

Robert DiPierdomenico, for one, credits Jeans with saving a career that could have ended prematurely because of ill-discipline, poor fitness and a bad attitude. He recounts a meeting with the coach that ended with him in tears after he had embarrassed Jeans by questioning his selection methods at the Hawks' social club.

DiPierdomenico learned one of his great lessons in life by being asked to consider the question Jeans would often ask his players: "Did I achieve the things I should have achieved with the amount of ability I am blessed with?"

Often a subtle but always a forthright advisor, Jeans once responded to DiPierdomenico's request to be allowed to wear a lace-up jumper by suggesting he discuss it with the reserves coach. End of debate. Dipper now sits with the greats, having won five premierships and a Brownlow Medal, mostly under Jeans' watch.

Jeans complemented his tough love with a lighter side: he would often 'rassle' his players when they were exhausted after training (urging them to give up as he applied more pressure to their weary bodies) and used his sharp wit to playfully let them know who was boss. When a group of players was arrested after a night of shenanigans on an overseas trip, Jeans was called to the local police station to sort out the drama. The exact words he spoke vary depending on who tells the story, but he reputedly advised the officer in charge he was free to shoot "him, him and him, but don't shoot the fat one" as he looked at star full-forward Jason Dunstall. The re-telling of the story is often a highlight at reunions.

Players quickly came to love Jeans, and many considered him a father figure. Brereton speaks in reverent tones of the man he variously describes as "beautiful" and "frightening". The pair formed a special bond. Jeans knew how to draw the best from his volatile centre half-forward; Brereton could always rely on Jeans giving him a kick up the bum when he needed - and deserved - one.

"Some day he'll go to God, and there will be more grown men crying at Allan Jeans passing than anyone else I can think of," Brereton said in an interview with the AFL Record in 2009.

Most players, at some point, attempted to imitate Jeans's unique voice and speaking style. In a nod to the joy this brought the players, a Yabby Cup competition was initiated where the winner was the person who could best imitate the great man, neck, head and shoulder movements included. Brereton, Russell Morris and the late Robert Dickson would gain most of the votes.

Jeans was a rare man: a great coach and an excellent people manager who had the capacity to read the play, be it during a critical phase of a match when changes needed to be made or at training when something was not quite right. He was astute when he sat down to make brutal decisions that would change players' lives, or when whispers emerged from the sides of mouths in the vicinity of the boardroom. His radar was a big factor in his record of coaching 550 League games, one of just four men to reach this milestone.

As he walked off the MCG late on a sunny Sunday afternoon - September 9, 1990, to be precise - he read the play as well as ever. His experienced and still-good (but battered) Hawthorn team had just been beaten by a fitter and hungrier Melbourne in an elimination final. The pattern of the game - and critically, the result - mirrored the contest between the same two teams just a week earlier at the same venue.

In his third year, 1983, Jeans had led the club to its first premiership in five seasons with a superb brand of running football. He rebuilt the confidence of his players after back-to-back Grand Final losses to Essendon in 1984-85. He led them to a brilliant, tactically inspired premiership win over Carlton in 1986. And in 1989, with Alan Joyce having completed the first leg of a pact for the club to win successive premierships, he led the Hawks to a Grand Final win over Geelong in one of the great contests of the modern era.

In 1990 Jeans's team - and the club - was in transition; the squad was ageing and key players were starting to feel the effects of years of physical commitment. Hawthorn's streak of seven consecutive Grand Final appearances had come to an end.

The game, too, was changing, and rapidly. One of the key elements that had made Hawthorn so strong in the past two decades, the regional zoning system that had delivered it an extraordinary number of blue-chip recruits, was being phased out and it was time for others to be given opportunities, both on and off the field.

Jeans had read the play. He had coached Hawthorn for the last time. But he was leaving on his terms, with integrity, discipline and universal respect.
 
Peter DiSisto is the editor of the AFL Record. This is a chapter from The Golden Years, stories from Hawthorn's greatest era. (to be published in August, by the Slattery Media Group. Advance orders available from slatterymedia.com/store)