How a Community Built a Dynasty on the Back of a Great Team
Overcoming adversity can make a team.
50-years ago this month saw one of the greatest Grand Finals in the history of the Australian Football League (AFL). Playing for the Premiership, Carlton was trailing its arch-rival Collingwood — the most outstanding team all season — by an unassailable 44-points at half time (for context, one goal is worth six points). It was looking like a boring, one-sided affair, where the dominant team was clinically dismembering its lowly opposition, just as it had done a fortnight earlier in the Semi-Final.
Carlton needed to do something otherwise they would be humiliated in the most important game of the year.
There are many different versions of what happened next, in the changing rooms at half time.
Some have it that coach Ron Barassi — himself a giant of the game — was quiet, leaving it to the players to reflect on their poor performance. Others recall a firey Barassi who came into the rooms and knocked over the drinks table in frustration. Time can play tricks on your memory. Despite the differing versions of the coach’s reaction, they all agree on one thing, the coach told them to be bold and take the game on — otherwise, they’d be relegated to a footnote in history.
“Taking the game on” required a free-flowing type of play: they had to keep the ball in motion as frequently as possible. For any team to achieve, everyone needs to be in perfect sync, anticipating the next move almost before it happens.
Whether he knew it or not, Barassi had encouraged a type of play that forced them to work as a team. But it also has the effect of energising every individual. It was during this classic Grand Final that Alex Jesalenko (aka Jezza) took what many have described as the “mark of the century”. And it has become an iconic image of the game.
These moments of individual brilliance in the context of seamlessly working together as a team is what allows each to perform at their best, in the best interests of everyone.
As the tide rises, all the boats are lifted.
So did it work? Carlton made a stunning comeback, turning the 44-point deficit into a 10-point victory at the final siren. So remarkable was the comeback that it is still the greatest comeback in Grand Final history. It looks unlikely to be broken.
But more than just winning that one Grand Final, the team — in fact, the whole club — grew in confidence, believing they could achieve anything. Following the 1970 Grand Final, the Club appeared in another seven Grand Finals in 16 years. They won an incredible five of them.
Nine players from that remarkable team made it into Carlton’s team of the Century, in the year 2000, further highlighting the lasting impact that team made on the history of the club.
“Working alone together” has become the mantra that echoes the hallways of tech companies like Google. But it’s not a new idea. It’s just hard to put into action consistently.
Jeremy Weinstein is a Melbourne-based football-loving teammate at NoTosh, the design thinking and strategy firm behind The Peloton Report.
