This round marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of one of Hawthorn’s greatest ever players.
Peter Knights made his debut, as a 17 year old, against St Kilda at Moorabbin in Round 9, 1969.
Interviewed for Footy Flashbacks, in Waverley Park’s Stadium Cafe last week, Knights says that he has vivid memories of his debut. He lined up at centre half forward, opposed to St Kilda’s Ian Synman, and recalls that he got maybe 10 or 12 touches. While he says the pace of the game was not that much greater than the Reserves, he remembers that he found the Seniors significantly physically tougher. Of course, the Hawthorn and St Kilda were entering a period of great rivalry, culminating in the 1971 Grand Final, where every game between the two clubs was a tough, rugged affair.
The Round 9, 1969 game was played in muddy Moorabbin conditions, which had a nasty postscript for Knights, when the mud got into a cut on his hand causing an infection, and keeping him out of action for the next couple of weeks.
The game was not a successful one for the Hawks. Going into Round 9, Hawthorn had won seven of eight, but the one defeat, to Carlton in Round 2, had been by a massive 128 points. This Round 9 game produced a second defeat – St Kilda 14.11.95 defeated Hawthorn 7.7.49. Peter Hudson booted 4 goals, while the best players were Rod Olsson, Ray Wilson, Neil Ferguson, Des Meagher and Ken Beck.
As a youngster, Peter Knights was a keen Hawthorn fan, whose favourite player was John Peck. However, growing up on a west Gippsland dairy farm limited his opportunities to come up to Melbourne and see the Hawks play. He reckons he only did it twice before he arrived at Glenferrie as a player. Remarkably, one of the two occasions he did attend a Hawthorn game was to see one of the most famous wins in the club’s history. As an eight year old, he was at Victoria Park in 1960, when the Hawks not only won at Collingwood for the very first time, but did so in the most dramatic fashion with a John Peck goal after the siren. Knights even got Peck’s autograph after the game!
Knights’ preparedness to play Senior football in 1969 had been facilitated by his playing for Longwarry Seniors, as a 16 year old, in 1968. Former St Kilda hard man Eric Guy was captain/coach of that Longwarry side and he had promised Knights’ sceptical father that he would look after the youngster on the field. Longwarry won the Flag in 1968; they have not won another since.
In one of school holidays of 1968, Peter played in a match at Glenferrie between young players from Hawthorn’s country and metropolitan zones. He remembers that he won a Hawthorn jumper as best player in the country side, but it was still a surprise when he was invited to come up for pre-season training in 1969, and an even greater surprise when he earned selection on the Senior list.
It was certainly a commitment travelling up from Longwarry four times a week. While these days almost the whole trip would be on a freeway, back then it was slower going, taking all of an hour and a half. On both Tuesdays and Thursdays, Knights was picked up outside high school by local taxi driver, Mrs Plew, who would drive him up, wait for him to get through two hours of John Kennedy training and then drive him home. On Saturdays for matches and Sundays for training, Knights’ father did the driving. As well as school and football, young Peter also helped out on the farm doing his share of milking the cows.
After the hand injury and a couple more Reserves games, Knights returned to the Senior team later in the 1969 season, playing four further games, oddly never in consecutive games. He kicked his first goals in Round 18, but perhaps more notable was Round 16 when chosen on the bench with another 17 year old, Leigh Matthews, making his own debut.
Knights established himself in the Seniors the following year playing 18 games, before playing 23 of 24 (missing the Grand Final through injury) in 1971. He went on to play 264 games, kick 201 goals, be a member of three Premiership teams (1976, 1978 and 1983), win two best and fairests (1975 and 1978), and finish runner-up in the Brownlow twice.
Hawthorn was behind in the head-to-head battle with this week’s opponent, Melbourne, from the first game between the two teams in Round 11, 1925, until Round 1 last season when Hawthorn’s massive 104 point win squared the ledger at 74 wins apiece. A follow-up victory in Round 9 last season put Hawthorn in front for the first time – 75 to 74 from 149 games.
Hawthorn lost the first nine meetings between the two clubs and the deficit grew as big as 36 (after a 4 point loss at the MCG in Round 7, 1968) before the Hawks began to reel it in. When the deficit was 36, the two clubs had played 74 games, with the Hawks winning 19 and losing 55. It took exactly the same number of games, and a 55-19 record the other way, for the Hawks to level the tallies at 74-74.
The Hawks did some serious catching up when putting together the club’s greatest ever winning sequence against another club, the run of 22 consecutive victories against Melbourne from Round 13, 1973 to Round 3, 1984.
One of the most memorable matches between Hawthorn and Melbourne took place 19 years ago this round - in Round 9, 1990.
With Jason Dunstall and Dermott Brereton taking no further part in the game after quarter time (in the days of only two interchange players), and then Gary Ayres injured in the third term, the Hawks’ chances of beating top team Melbourne seemed remote.
With the Demons leading by two goals in the third quarter, the immobile Ayres was sent to full forward. Ayres out-pointed two defenders to take a pack mark and kicked the goal off a couple of steps. He added another later in the term, while also decisively winning a push and shove with a handful of Melbourne defenders. Sandwiched between Ayres’ two goals, Dean Anderson had burst clear of a pack to score and give Hawthorn the most unlikely of leads.
Melbourne recorded the opening score of the final term – a behind. It was to be their final score of the match. Hawthorn was about to kill them off. Platten twice, Anderson and Ayres all booted inspirational goals as the Hawks recorded one of the clubs most heroic ever wins – 14.8.92 to 7.6.48.
Hawthorn has played 84 matches in Round 9 for 37 wins and 47 defeats. The club has recorded wins in three of the past four Round 9s, beating Fremantle in Perth in 2005, West Coast in Launceston in 2007 and Melbourne at the MCG last season.
The leading individual goalkicker against Melbourne is Peter Hudson who booted 16 in Round 5, 1969. Hudson also holds the Round 9 record and has done so for the past 41 years. He booted 10, in a 30 point victory over Fitzroy at Glenferrie, in this round in 1968.
