The Tigers won eleven successive matches early in the 1982 VFL season and, after a slump as injuries took toll late on the home-and-away rounds, returned to their most devastating form in the finals.

In the Carlton rooms, David Parkin wrote a few key points on the blackboard and made a simple promise to his players that they would win if every one of them worked hard and never stopped trying across the entire game.

After his address, Parkin ran one last time the video footage of the team receiving the premiership cup and winners medals after the previous season's triumph.

The build-up had been deliberately kept low-key; players were told to forget about the fanfare and occasion and to instead concentrate on the game at hand and attack every contest for the ball as hard as they could.

As a hailstorm swept across the ground (it would rain sporadically throughout the day), brawls between the two teams began to break out mainly around the outer wing area, resulting in Jones being reported for striking Lee by field umpire Sawers.

Five minutes passed with no further score added until Carlton launched what would be the final attacking play of the quarter; Fitzpatrick kicked to the lead of full-forward Ditchburn.

As Ditchburn fumbled the marking attempt and went to ground, he received an accidental knee to the head from his opponent Martello and had to be helped from the field, taking no further part in the game.

As the nearest Carlton player to the incident, Johnston took the free kick, and his accurate set shot put the Blues back in front shortly before the siren sounded.

Carlton defender McConville gathered the ball but his handpass was intercepted by Weightman who again found Cloke alone in the goal square, enabling him to stroll in and kick his second.

Harmes was moved on to Bartlett, but the bigger headache for Carlton was Rioli, whose superb midfield play was providing the Tigers forwards with constant scoring opportunities.

The Blues managed to stem the tide with Fitzpatrick now providing a target at centre half-forward, and after McConville, who had been shifted forward, scored an opportunistic goal at the 29-minute mark, the Tigers went into the main break with an 11-point lead.

Then followed the incident for which this match became famous; as the ball was being brought back for the restart of play, the crowd's attention turned to a female streaker who was naked except for a Carlton scarf around her shoulders.

[7] In later years, it was suggested that D'Amico's stunt was partly responsible for stopping Richmond's momentum in this game, but Blues ruckman Warren Jones adamantly rejected this notion: It threw a spanner in the works because, we were just starting to have a bit of a run-on.

The forward pressure that Parkin had instilled as part of Carlton's game plan was now paying dividends, and Fitzpatrick had played an immense quarter at centre half-forward.

[14] His statistics for the match (18 kicks, one handpass and one mark) only tell part of the story; every time he was near the ball, Richmond players and fans would get excited, while Carlton opponents would sense imminent danger, especially when he tackled them.

[16] The fall-out at Richmond was swift and dramatic; by the end of the year, former club captains Raines and Cloke would be at Collingwood, sparking a bitter recruiting war between the two neighbouring arch-rivals which would plunge the Tigers into bankruptcy.