Eighty-Nine: Thirty Years On
Hawthorn's mighty 1989 Grand Final-winning team. James Morrissey is in the middle row, fourth from left.
For a player who former Hawthorn premiership wingman, Rodney Eade, once dubbed “the freak”, it would be safe to assume that skilful and versatile 106-game forward, James Morrissey (1984-93), played with a swagger to match that of his more well-known teammate, Dermott Brereton. Not so. In fact, the initial sight of the young, brash Brereton almost led to the introverted Morrissey losing confidence that he could ever match it in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
“I remember going down to under-19 training in 1981 and seeing Dermott swathe his way through packs,” Morrissey explained in 2018. “I thought, Shit! I’m not ready for this. So, I went away for a year. It wasn’t just because of him, but I remember seeing him doing that at training and realising I was a fair way off the mark. He developed a lot quicker than I did, physically.”
It was fortunate Morrissey stuck it out. Eight years later, he ensured his name was immortalised within Hawthorn’s storied history when he became an integral member of the club’s first back-to-back Grand Final-winning sides of 1988-89. In ’88, the Hawks blitzed a shell-shocked Melbourne on route to the (then) greatest winning margin in a Grand Final, 96 points. But the following year, a fast-rising Geelong were a far more difficult prospect.
What ensued over three captivating hours on the sunny afternoon of Saturday 30 September, 1989, was one of the most dramatic, brutal, action-packed and iconic Grand Finals in the game’s history; a last-man-standing affair which, 30 years on, is remembered with the utterance of two simple words: Eighty-nine. Three decades after being a part of that physical yet free-flowing, edge-of-your-seat contest, Morrissey—today, a Melbourne-based grants manager with the Department of Education and Training—reflected with raw honesty about his role on that now famous day.
“The 1989 Grand Final grows in its folklore as time goes by—it’s still current today,” Morrissey began. “The reminders of it are still there. When you look at today, where it’s probably even harder to win back-to-back, I look back with real fondness for what we achieved in 1988-89. I particularly look back and think how well we did to knock Geelong off, because I think they were unbelievable that year.”
The Hawthorn team of the 1980s was a hardened, supremely confident, process-driven machine that intimidated opponents before even crossing the white line. During a run of seven consecutive Grand Final appearances (1983-89), they were led by some of the greatest names in football history, including Leigh Matthews, Michael Tuck, Gary Ayres, Brereton, Robert DiPierdomenico and Jason Dunstall. That Morrissey became a valued member of such a team was a credit to his patience, hard work, and an innate determination to step outside his comfort zone.
In the shadows of a team chock full of extroverts, Morrissey, while biding his time in the reserves, observed, practised and, ultimately, by 1988, blossomed into one of the League’s most skilful players. Shown support by firstly coach Allan Jeans, then his replacement Alan Joyce (who coached the 1988 season, because Jeans suffered a brain aneurism and stood out of football for twelve months), Morrissey finally believed he belonged. His first Premiership Medal came under Joyce in just his 20th game; a crack at a second medallion, under the recovered Jeans, arrived just 20 games later. But, unlike ’88, where the result was a foregone conclusion by early in the second quarter, in Eighty-nine the result was unknown until the final siren sounded.
“There were a few nerves during the week, but running out was the best feeling of all,” Morrissey recalled of that special moment when he entered the arena before the ’88 decider, then again in Eighty-nine. “I had wanted to do that since I was four years old, so, for me, it was like 20 years in the making. They say, take your time to look around, so I did that. It was a great feeling.
“But aggression for footy never came natural to me,” he continued. “I found it hard to get fired up to the level of intensity you need for the non-important games. I think when it was a big game, like a Grand Final where the natural adrenaline takes over, that’s how I lifted myself for those more significant matches.”
As players made for their positions to begin Eighty-nine, Morrissey was seen limbering up while walking toward the interchange bench. Alongside him was 19-year-old Greg Madigan, about to play just his sixth League game—he had been a surprise inclusion for the suspended Peter Schwab. Neither Madigan, nor Morrissey, was expecting to experience much action in the opening quarter, perhaps not the opening half. Then, all hell broke loose.
No sooner had they taken their seats on the bench, a shudder was sent through the Hawthorn side: Brereton was deliberately cannoned in to by a fired up and vengeful Mark Yeates, breaking his ribs, and emerging Geelong superstar, Gary Ablett, marked on the lead and kicked the first goal—all within 30 seconds. “I didn’t see the Dermott hit at the start,” Morrissey admitted. “I was on the bench and everyone was really worried for him when he went down, but I was silently hoping he would have to come off for a brief period so I could get on the ground. I don’t know if I should admit that, but the truth is, part of me desperately wanted to come on.”
Brereton was on his back being attended to by trainers, Jeans was out of his seat in the coach’s box making adjustments on the fly—amidst the chaos, the call came down for Morrissey to prepare to join the contest. “I had been told to get ready to go on, because Jeansy wanted Dermott to come off,” Morrissey recalled. Brereton refused to leave the field and, instead, was moved to the forward pocket. Soon after, he took a gutsy mark and goaled. It was a telling, symbolic gesture that said: I may be battered, but I am far from broken. “In the end, we were rapt that he stayed on, because it was like a show of strength,” Morrissey said. “It was, Dermott’s hurt but he’s fighting on, so game on!
“That said, I didn’t have any sense of it being a pivotal moment at the time. It was certainly an important moment and a show of strength from Dermott, but it’s been glorified since. The game was about a lot more than that. There were demonstrations of courage by players on both teams right across the board.”
While Geelong were unable to control their aggression—their targeting of the man cost a number of undisciplined free kicks, while also causing further injuries—a cleaner, more composed Hawthorn built a crucial 40-point quarter-time lead. “It was obvious Geelong were aggressive toward the man,” Morrissey said. “You could sense it, could sense people running off the line of the ball. Seeing the replay over the years, you could tell that they were under instructions. But, with hindsight, you wonder whether that was a bad strategy they went in with, considering the lead we opened up in that first quarter.” Hawthorn had piled on the highest opening-term Grand Final score since Carlton in 1972: It was 8.4 (52) to Geelong’s 2.0 (12).
Morrissey entered the game two minutes into the second term, when a dazed and groggy Platten—a key playmaker—had his day abruptly halted. “Platten was concussed, completely punch-drunk, so they brought him off,” Morrissey recalled, “but I didn’t recognise how out of it he was at the time.” Darrin Pritchard moved into the roving role and Morrissey went forward.
“It was a totally different feeling to ’88,” Morrissey said. “There was a misty heat in Eighty-nine, which made it really hard yakka. Brunsy (Neville Bruns) whacked me in the back when I came on, and I still feel it today when I go to bed each night—but that was all part of the game. I felt crap when he did it, but we had guys who were ten times worse than me.” One of those was DiPierdomenico, who had been cannoned into by Ablett in the first term, puncturing his lung. That ‘Dipper’ played out the game, unaware of his gradually decreasing condition, was one of the most courageous solo performances in Grand Final history.
Morrissey’s first disposal came at eight minutes, when he handballed under pressure to Chris Wittman who missed a gettable chance. He was soon seen patting Brereton on the back, when the wounded warrior snapped his third goal to give Hawthorn a 41-point buffer. Despite the margin, it was exhilarating, end-to-end stuff; Ablett, in particular, was beginning to put on a clinic, plucking one-hand marks and snapping goals from seemingly impossible positions. “I watched Ablett through that finals series just shaking my head,” Morrissey said. “I was in awe of the super man wearing the number five Geelong guernsey. To this day, I still consider him the best player I’ve seen.”
Morrissey’s first kick came on the Members’ wing at 13 minutes. Since entering the contest, he seemed to be arriving at wherever the ball was, but had yet to find the rub of the green. This was never more evident than at 15 minutes, when a desperate Dunstall hit the ball back into play (ala Carlton’s Wayne Harmes to teammate Ken Sheldon in 1979), it bounced into Morrissey’s hands and he waltzed in and kicked an easy goal…alas, the umpire had blown his whistle to signal the ball had gone out of bounds.
His next kick was at 19 minutes, again on the wing. Six minutes later, in the same position, he plucked a gutsy contested mark between two players; his kick then pinpointed Pritchard, who found Dunstall for another goal. In a game of moments and timing, Morrissey was finding his groove; he was growing more confident by the minute, as was evident out of the next centre bounce, when Hawthorn again went forward. Morrissey swooped on the loose ball, scooped it up with his left hand and had a split second to flick a handball to Wittman before being met by an oncoming opponent—Wittman snapped a great goal. If you blinked, you missed it, but Morrissey’s touch was sublime. In those final minutes of the first half, with Geelong having threatened to get back into the game, Morrissey had provided invaluable spark and touch just when his team needed it. They led 12.9 (81) to 7.2 (44).
“I remember feeling very tired and hot at half-time—there was no sense that it was game over,” Morrissey recalled. “‘Yabby’ (Jeans) knew Geelong would come back, so he dug into his basket of tricks and pulled out the shoe story.” The coach told his weary players a tale of paying full price for a better pair of shoes, rather than saving a few dollars by buying a cheaper pair but regretting it afterwards. “Everyone was exhausted, and he was frothing at the mouth and animating with his arms,” Morrissey added. “He was yelling and saying, ‘Pay the price! Pay the price!’ He built it up and built it up, and by the end of it he was loud and firing us up. No doubt he would have got another 10-15 per cent out of all of us after that, just by his inspiration. The way he delivered it was just brilliant.”
Ninety seconds after the restart, Morrissey’s eyes lit up when he received a handball from Wittman and raced in to kick for the first goal of the third quarter; his shot, from 30 metres, was offline and only a point was scored. His miss was one of a number of poor mistakes that Hawthorn players—including the iceman, dual Norm Smith medallist Gary Ayres—made during the early stages of the term; fortunately for Jeans, Geelong, despite a number of chances, and although they reduced the margin to under four goals at one point, failed to fully capitalise on the scoreboard. But the signs were there that the result was far from determined. Play by courageous play, Eight-nine remained gripping drama.
At 14 minutes, Morrissey gathered tight on centre wing and put the jet burners on, intent on charging through half-forward. Then he heard a whistle. DiPierdomenico had elbowed Garry Hocking in a (deliberate) clumsy shepherd and the ball was coming back. Dipper was reported, Morrissey was disappointed. “I was spewing! I had grabbed the ball on the wing and was going for a bounce, thinking I was going to take it all the way, then I heard two things in the background,” Morrissey explained. “I heard the MCC members gasp, because Dipper had just cleaned up Hocking and got reported. Then, a couple of seconds later, I heard the whistle for a free kick to Geelong. Thanks Dipper!”
Morrissey (no. 35) hears the umpire (top) blow his whistle, following the clash between Garry Hocking (middle, on ground) and Robert DiPierdomenico (no. 9).
Seven minutes later, all was forgiven when DiPierdomenico took a good contested mark at half-forward and kicked to 25 metres out: Morrissey crumbed the ball, manoeuvred through two opponents and snapped a clever goal. Channel Seven commentator, Dennis Cometti, quipped that it was “like the parting of the Red Sea.” Morrissey’s was an important goal (as were goals by Buckenara and Anderson soon after), as within seconds a dejected Ayres exited the game, done for the day, and was replaced by Madigan. At three-quarter time, Hawthorn led 18.13 (121) to 13.7 (85).
“..like the parting of the Red Sea..”
Early in the last term, Madigan, at half-back, spiked the ball volleyball-style down to Collins who kicked to centre wing. Morrissey led Mark Bos to the ball, controlled it on the ground with his left hand, spun and gathered on his right, then steadied and kicked with his left boot to the leading Brereton. Soon after, Morrissey plucked a one-hand mark at centre half-forward. It was plays like those which inspired Eade to label his young teammate freaky. But it was simplistic to put Morrissey’s skills down to a quirk of nature—there was a reason: practice, practice, practice.
“I was obsessive about footy growing up, so I would go to the park every night and kick the ball around,” Morrissey explained. He also attributed his ability to utilise both sides of his body from lessons his father drilled into him from a young age. “If you see a player who’s good on both sides, then every time they get the ball they’ve got more time to dispose of it,” Morrissey explained. “Even as they’re turning to pick up the ball, they can start to move their body in a different direction because they’ve got the whole 360 degrees to work within. Some players don’t have that, so it’s really helpful to have, because it creates time and allows you to make the pass with your opposite hand or foot.
“I tended to turn on to my left more often than I did my favoured right; I subconsciously lapsed to that side because I knew I had more space, because my opponent naturally went towards my right foot. That was a huge asset for me.” Later in the final quarter, Morrissey spilled a mark, recovered, rode a bump and gathered the ball in his right hand, instinctively swung on to his left and snapped for goal on the run, narrowly missing.
After Geelong had thrown punches all day but failed to land a telling blow, a long goal to Darren Flanigan kick-started the unlikely comeback. The margin was 27. Then Ablett kicked his seventh. A female streaker in a Batman mask and cape raced across the field—few noticed. The umpires didn’t even stop the play. Dunstall kicked a steadier, then the Cats’ Barry Stoneham goaled. Ablett snapped his eighth. Hawks by 17. “I was certainly clock-watching in that last quarter,” Morrissey admitted. “They were coming hard and we were running on empty; we were just hanging on in that last ten minutes.”
Shane Hamilton soon snapped another goal for Geelong. Hawks by 11. Anderson goaled against the flow. Then Ablett kicked a record-equalling ninth. And then his teammate, David Cameron, goaled. It was suddenly six points the difference, 30 seconds remaining. DiPierdomenico, his body expanding internally due to that damaged lung, forced a second stoppage out of the centre bounce by throwing himself at the ball. The siren sounded seconds later. Hawthorn had held on for history: 21.18 (144) to 21.12 (138). Cometti concluded: “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve just seen a classic.”
“I was at half-forward when the final siren sounded, watching Bos, my opponent,” Morrissey recalled. “The feeling when the siren went wasn’t euphoric like the year before—although it was eventually—but, instead, was exhaustion and relief. And that night, the exhaustion was still there because it was just so draining.
“It was fortuitous for someone like me to be in that team at that time,” the humble Morrissey conceded. “Whilst I did contribute a lot at different times, there are a lot of more consistent players at other clubs who haven’t played in successful teams. It’s fickle fate that they didn’t get the chance and I did, so I have a lot of gratitude for that.”
Morrissey receives his hard-earned 1989 Premiership Medal from Ted Whitten and VFL CEO Ross Oakley.
Two years later, in 1991, Morrissey claimed a third Premiership Medal when he was one of the best afield in Hawthorn’s 53-point Grand Final triumph over the West Coast Eagles. But, to this day, it was his part in football’s most dramatic modern Grand Final—perhaps the last truly brutal Grand Final—that he is asked about more than any other moment or event in his 54-year life. “Someone said to me once, if the game had gone ten minutes longer Geelong would have won,” Morrissey concluded. “But I reckon, if the game had started ten minutes earlier, we would have won by more!”
Triple Hawthorn premiership player, James Morrissey, with Dan Eddy's 2018 publication, The Norm Smith Medallists.