You should have seen him playing At his peak.....Turned more games off his own boot than any other player I've seen...the very definition of a Champion & pure match-winner
Princes Park, Sat Aug 7th 1982. Haw v Coll. My school was playing in the little league that day and I was so nervous before the game I honestly didn't think I could play. We were allowed to watch the 1st qr before getting changed. Leigh kicked 3, bulldozed his way through the Coll defence and set up the eventual win in just 30 mins. Any feeling of nerves I had were totally gone. After watching his inspiration I wanted to run through walls !! He was an extraordinarily gifted player.
915 goals as a rover, centreman and forward pocket. Seven times from 1975 to 1983 he averaged 20 or more disposals and three plus goals per game for a season. 1977, he had almost 700 possessions and kicked 91 goals. Twice he had 40 disposals and kicked ten or more goals in the same game. 4 premierships with Hawthorn 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983 Premiership coach 1990 (Collingwood) , 2001, 2002, 2003 (Brisbane) 1975 Coleman Medallist AFL player of the 20th Century AFL Team of The Century in the forward pocket 8x club best and fairest 6x club leading goal kicker He was the alpha male from 1973-1978 and 1982-1985. If he didn’t have injuries from 1979 to 1981, he’d have kicked 1000 goals easily.
was just watching Open Mike with K Sheedy talking about Robert Walls ' we were both dirty 11:40 .. thats how it was played. Seen in this light Matthews is a man of his time and the football culture that existed then. 915 goals 8 x club champion 4 playing flags and 4 more coaching including triple at Brisbane and player of the century. THUG indeed !
Leigh has always been good at saying what he thinks people want to hear. Money is important and a few years ago when the game really started to change from a physical perspective Leigh's position as a commentator looked under threat. ie His pay was under threat. He changed and towed the AFL line tempered his comments to fit in with the modern era. Fair play to Matthews. But for me it said a lot about him. More an observation than a criticism.
He is a very rude person and I have the proof. I've seen him a couple of times and both times he was rude and pathetic, me and my family saw him at the MSG, just outside of the stadium and my Dad noticed him first and said "Hello" too him but he looked at him like he was an Alien from Outer Space and just ignored him. The second time we saw him was almost identical too the first time, I was with my Mum, Dad and brothers and he did the same thing, he ignored us and He looked like a stuck up pig and from that moment on I have truly hated him, he's a monster through and through, trust me! He's the biggest fool in AFL history, absolutely pathetic!
Yes; I was there (Waverley) the day Lethal was lethal with 11 goals! playing Essendon....Funny thing was that was the only time I saw him play!But he was lethal ... He never really played full forward before that ... he was always on the ball
but not a great man, I've met him a couple of times and he was rude too me and my family. About 15 years ago we saw him and tried talking too him cause, my Dad said Hello when he was walking near us but he just looked at my Dad Like he was an Alien, he obviously knew he was talking too him cause he looked at him but said nothing and walked away. My Mum and me had the same response from him another time, we were standing out side of the MSG like the first time when we saw him and we noticed he was standing near us and we said "Hello" but he looked at us like we were nothing and completely ignored us. He's a absolute monster. One of the most rude and pathetic AFL players ever!
Funny how so many call him a thug ? He played tough hard football in an era where if you did not play that way you would dead. He is The Greatest Of All Time in the VFL/AFL . Best I ever saw .
The All-Time Legend of the game. I had an awesome childhood growing up admiring Lethal. I actually had the chance to steal the goal post he broke but I couldn't imagine myself going unnoticed on the train ride home. I'm not sure if it's known where it is now but I can tell you it was sitting in a little shed at Glenferrie Oval.
@J G And what's your point, champ? I'm guessing you think that makes you somehow better than us because you follow soccer and we follow AFL? Guess what - it doesn't. That equates with a flea claiming some sort of credit because he happens to live on the biggest dog. Find something useful to do, you flog.
@@alansimmonds9030 . Hardly relevant but good onya for making such an intelligent comment. Also watched Mathews nearly kill Neville Bruns in 1985 in what was the doggest act to ever grace a football field. Mathews woudn't survive in todays game, 3 umpires and cameras everywhere.
@@CaffeineJogger You can't have been at that game then, because Whacko Jacko' had lost all control & was throwing haymakers in trying to knock out all of Mew, ayres & Langers for a good 5-10 minute period in the second qtr. Your comments are both ignorant of the facts, & ill-informed..
It’s amazing he and Scotty had so much success together as they hardly ever spoke to each other. Mathews was probably the best I’ve ever seen not to win a Brownlow.
Man U you are an attention seeker. And if you did know anything about ‘Soccer’ you would be calling it football not soccer. True round ball fans all over the world never call it soccer. Get your facts right and get all your attention needs elsewhere!
Impressive and speedy Wikipedia search. If you are publicly broadcasting then why is your dialogue and the way you write so childlike in style. Why do you feel the need to attack other football codes and why do you feel the need to get attention for yourself in what is essentially a very remote feed from your own area of interest.
Leigh Matthews was right, if Mike was going to bring up all of Matthew's incidents of dirty acts and thuggery, they'd be there all night doing the interview. Probably be a 25 part interview.
What wasn't mentioned about the Bruns incident was the build up and reason behind it. All day Geelong were using dirty tactics and taking cheap shots at Hawks players and Lethal had simply had enough watching the dirt be handed out to his teammates. At least 3 Geelong players had already been reported and Lethal just thought he would join the action. Bruns can be butthurt as much as he wants but knowing what sort of a game his own team were already playing, allowing it to be taken further with the police is un-Australian and a pathetic thing to do. Under the circumstances, Leigh had no reason to let this play on his mind too much and if anything Lethal certainly chose the right caliber of person.
Yes it did thanks. And no more Hawthorn players were felled, that's for sure. Same old sob story, they had no problem dishing it out but call foul when it comes back tenfold. They wanted it played that way, they got what they wanted.
+Scott Barker Stop talking shit if you don't know anything about the game. Jack was doing plenty off the ball. Matthews decided to hit back harder. The only person who should still be butthurt about this incident is Bruns. Are you Neville Bruns?
+Al Bundy You're a funny guy Bundo. Speaking of talking shit, damn boy, copious amounts coming from your direction. By the looks of it you're a one eyed Dawk fan who are the worst fans in Aussie Rules. You just can't have a decent conversation with someone like yourself.
Neville went to the press & was on the front cover of the Herald Sun the following Monday Morning, calling Barney the pits....1989 was some nice Karmic comeuppance for the little sniping turd.
@@michaelmarshall1713 Barney had said to the group that they were born to do this - play finals that is.....Fair to say that our 1982-1991 Dynasty took those words to heart....But Derm, Dipper & Ayres - most especially - took up the mantle of being the teams enforcers once Barney retired, led by his example to them.
The sly shots is why he never got a Brownlow, That said i can't believe a player took it outside of the game and involved the cops, thats a real weak act i reckon. If Mathews or anyone else did that to me, it would be a case of pay back, i'd get my revenge. Couldn't imagine going to the cops, thats as they say is un-Australian
DH Dowi BS, if i can't beat them face to face, i'll use my cunning brain and exact revenge without them knowing. You do realize i hope i'm only talking about someone wronging me in some way. If someone done something, i would have to get revenge, i couldn't live with thinking about what they'd done all the time.
Barney never complained about getting hit whereas some liked to moan. It was mean't to be an unwritten code with all players. He gave as much as he got. In the 1971 Grand Final and the 1989 GF Hawthorn had a major casualty list. When Barney received maximum blame over the Bruns incident it broke that unwritten code and Barney was the scapegoat for this and the game got less brutal as a result.
Joe Anderson he got the outcome he deserved. There is tough and there is dirty and their is what Matthew’s did to Burns. He has never tried to defend it, you shouldn’t either
Champion players like Leigh, have footy brains. And yes he is a proven coach as well. Shame those Freo,Dockers will never win a Grand Final on the basis they dont have footy brains.
I agree with your assessment that Barrie Robran was arguably the best player ever. Even the supremely gifted Alex Jesaulenko applauded him in a match. Never seen an opposition player do that.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel. Met him down in Hobart in 2015 at the Salamanca markets at a local cafe. Tried to cut the line in front of me. Total flog.
