Already a dual premiership player and five-time best and fairest winner, Leigh Matthews’ contribution on Grand Final day, 1978, only added to one of the great football legacies.
The man known as ‘Lethal’ was instrumental for the Hawks on that particular lastSaturday in September, kicking four goals from a team-high 28 disposals in what was a best-a-field performance as the Hawks toppled nemesis North Melbourne by 18 points.
An inspired effort in the second term saw Matthews baulk around North captain Ross Glendinning, before spinning around another to snap a goal on his left boot just metres from the goal line, snatching back the lead from the Kangaroos, before standing strong to mark inside the Hawks’ forward fifty moments later to kick the side’s next goal.
It was from long range that Matthews would score his third for the term and fourth overall after again marking strongly.
While with the game on the line in the final quarter, Matthews was at the coal-face, winning the ball through the middle of the ground, as Hawthorn secured their seventh premiership.
Read - 08: Where are they now?
Matthews then went on to achieve the much-esteemed feat of winning a best and fairest in a premiership year, as he’d also done in ’71 and ’76, but missed a large portion of the following season due to injury as the Hawks failed to make the finals.
Returning to again win the Peter Crimmins Perpetual Memorial Trophy in 1980, Matthews took over as club captain in 1981 before leading the Hawks back to the finals in ’82 – a season which saw Matthews famously collide with, and snap, a behind post and claim a club-record eighth best and fairest, as well as the first-ever Player’s Association MVP award.
During 1983 however, Matthews made a permanent move to the forward line, finishing with 79 goals for the season and still managing an average of more than 20 disposals, as the Hawks made their way to yet another grand final, this time against Essendon.
Matthews lead the Hawks with six goals as the side claimed their fifth premiership by what was then the biggest ever grand final margin of 83 points.
The ‘84 season saw Matthews continue his good form and become just the second Hawk to surpass 300 games, as Hawthorn again went on to face the Bombers in that season’s grand final, with Matthews kicking four goals as the Hawks went down by 24 points.
Matthews would make 1985 his last season as a player, with another grand final loss to Essendon his final game in the brown and gold, as he finished one of the most revered players of all time and a legend of 332 games, four premierships and eight best and fairest awards.
