This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hawthorn’s win over West Coast in the 1991 Grand Final, with the two meeting in Launceston this weekend.

It was the Eagles’ first Grand Final appearance and came on the back of a dominant home and away season, in which they won their first 12 games and finished three games clear on top of the ladder with a 19-3 record.

The Hawks’ started the season slowly, losing five of their first 11 games. However, they lost just one more game for the rest of the home and away season to finish second on the ladder.

The two met four times during the year, the Eagles winning the home and away encounters, the Hawks the two finals.

Former Hawthorn full-forward Jason Dunstall and coach Alan Joyce recently shared their memories of those clashes for the upcoming book The Golden Years: Stories from Hawthorn’s Greatest Era.


Jason Dunstall
West Coast was the best team in 1991, but we always fancied ourselves against them.

The Eagles belted us at Princes Park (by 82 points) in round seven. We could have beaten them at Subiaco in round 22, but we just let our opportunities slip (and lost by 24 points).

But we left there thinking that, next time we played them, we should be just about right.

Beating the Eagles in the qualifying final (by 23 points) at Subiaco Oval was enormous and probably the confidence boost we needed because we knew it would be hard for them to win the flag with all the travelling they then had to do.

Had we lost to them again, there still would have been doubts heading into any subsequent match against them.

We managed to get through to the Grand Final and I remember ‘Joycey’ coming up to Dermott Brereton and I before the game and saying, if we could kick 10 goals between us, we’d win.

And that’s how it turned out.

They were kicking with the breeze in the first quarter and kicked a few early goals and were up and running. But we kicked a couple of important goals late in the quarter to keep us in it. Then we had the breeze and got on top.

We ended up running over the top of them (by 53 points).

Playing at Waverley Park didn’t hurt us. It was our home ground by then and we loved playing there.


Alan Joyce
The turning point of our season was the round 22 game at Subiaco. West Coast beat us, but it planted the seed for beating them in the opening week of the finals.

I put together a video of highlights from that game, showing a series of contests where we were first to the footy. The video demonstrated we were always in the game.

The qualifying final against West Coast at Subiaco was the first played outside Melbourne. We won by 23 points in what was probably the highlight of my coaching career outside the Grand Finals.

The players were excellent that day. Their preparation was good and everything we did came off.

In the Grand Final, Paul Dear was our wild card. He won the Norm Smith Medal playing off a half-forward flank and really completed the forward structure we had with Dunstall and Brereton.

The Golden Years: Stories from Hawthorn’s Greatest Era (Slattery Media Group) will be released later this year.