After having last qualified for a VFL finals series in 1947, the Tigers made wholesale changes to the club in the 1960s in a bid to return to the top of the competition.

Regarded as a pioneer of the modern game, Smith struggled with ill health during his tenure, but his trailblazing ideas and methods were embraced by his successor Tom Hafey, who took the reins in 1966.

Harnessing the disappointment of the previous season's close finish, and with the final pieces of the puzzle in place with the arrival of future captain Royce Hart, Graeme Bond and Kevin Sheedy, the Tigers won 15 games to take out their first minor premiership since 1944.

Mirroring the town's fortunes for the decade,[3] Geelong had qualified for the last five VFL finals series, claiming the flag in 1963 under the coaching of Bob Davis, the captaincy of Fred Wooller and the brilliance of legendary ruckman Graham "Polly" Farmer.

Davis was replaced by former teammate Peter Pianto as senior coach in 1966 and guided Geelong to third place, but poor kicking for goal in the last quarter of the First Semi-final against Essendon saw them lose by ten points.

However, they had lost second ruck Sam Newman early in the game with what was later discovered to be severe internal bleeding from a ruptured kidney, making him unavailable for the remainder of the finals.

In the Preliminary final against Carlton two weeks later, Geelong turned a 27-point half-time deficit into a 29-point win with a stunning second half that included eight goals to one in the third quarter.

In his article for the Canberra Times, published the day after the match, Rohan Rivett praised the skill standard of both teams while dismissing the doomsayers who decried the "modern" style of football: When the siren sounded, scarcely a soul moved for the exits.

The second biggest crowd in grand final history, 109,396 people stood and applauded all 36 players, because in this game victor and vanquished gave their all in the most spectacular exhibition of the code even the oldest connoisseurs can recall.

Soul-searching about the game in recent years has not been confined to the old and bold who deplore the insistence of play-on tactics and speed at all costs which has robbed the spectator of the placekicking, the expert stabpassing, and other finer arts familiar to the prewar generation.

More vitally, the mounting injury rate, despite modern panaceas in the dressing room, has suggested that Victorian league finals might come to be won by the biggest and toughest rather than the most talented.Yesterday indicated to all that this may be an illusion.

[7]Geelong captain Graham Farmer was gracious in defeat: Our mistakes – free kicks, a couple of fumbles and miskicks – cost us the game.

A panel which viewed the game retrospectively for the AFL Record's Grand Final edition in 2001, consisting of Sam Newman (who in 1967 watched the game on television from hospital while recovering from emergency surgery), former AFL CEO Wayne Jackson and football journalist Mike Sheahan, voted Bill Goggin as the best player on the day, with 20 kicks, ten handpasses and three goals.