Malcolm Jack Blight AM (born 16 February 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for and coached the North Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and Woodville Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). He also coached the Geelong Football Club, Adelaide Football Club and St Kilda Football Club.
Blight is the only player to have kicked 100 goals in a season in both the VFL and the SANFL. He is also one of three players to have won the Brownlow Medal and the Magarey Medal. He was an inaugural inductee Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and was elevated to Legend status in 2017. In addition, he has captained the state representative sides of both Victoria and South Australia.
In spite of his "failure" as a playing coach of North Melbourne, Blight cemented his reputation as one of the greatest coaches during his stints with and , before finishing up in acrimonious circumstances at . In 2012, Blight was appointed director of coaching at the Gold Coast Football Club.
The surname "Blight" is of Cornish origin.
Football career
1968–1973: First stint at Woodville Blight grew up living just four streets from Woodville Oval. He supported , with his favourite player at the time being forward Rex Johns. However, when Woodville began to play in the SANFL from 1964 Blight was in their recruiting zone, making his debut for the Woodpeckers in 1969. He had a break-out year in 1972, kicking 45 goals while playing mainly as a ruck-rover. He won Woodville's best and fairest award as well as the SANFL's highest individual honor, the Magarey Medal, bringing him to the attention of the VFL.
1974–1982: Success in Victoria with North Melbourne Blight was recruited by the North Melbourne Football Club and, although he was reluctant to join at first, he went on to play 178 games for the club between 1974 and 1982.North Melbourne Football Club: Hall of Fame He was a member of the Kangaroos' premiership sides in 1975 and 1977, and in 1978 won both the Brownlow Medal and the Syd Barker Medal for being the best and fairest player in the VFL and for North Melbourne respectively.
Blight was consistently one of the most brilliant players in the VFL during the 1970s. Besides taking spectacular marks, he was also a prolific goal kicker, renowned for his ability to use the torpedo punt. In 1982, Blight won the Coleman Medal as the leading the VFL goal scorer, and led the Kangaroos' goal kicking four times during his career.
Eighty-metre goal after the siren
In a moment that has since passed into Australian rules football folklore, Blight kicked a famous goal after the siren against Carlton in Round 10, 1976, (5 June). Carlton led by 14 points going into added time in the final quarter, but Blight kicked two goals, and then marked the ball an estimated 80 metres from goal, just seconds before the final siren. North Melbourne, trailing by one point, needed a behind to draw and a goal to win. Many assumed Blight's effort would be futile and spectators were already exiting the arena. However, Blight kicked one of the longest-ever torpedo punts, with the ball going through the goal at the height of the posts, achieving an improbable victory for the Kangaroos: 11.15 (81) to Carlton's 11.10 (76). (YouTube video)
This moment was the focus of a television commercial in the Toyota Legendary Moments series which featured Blight. (YouTube video)
Infamous moments During the 1977 VFL season, which happened to be played during the wettest Melbourne winter in 40 years, hosted at Arden Street. The ground conditions were atrocious, and the match for the most part resembled something more akin to mud wrestling. Hawthorn led by one point when Blight was given a free kick and a set shot for goal. He scored a behind, which would have levelled the scores, but was given a second attempt after the umpire penalised Hawthorn for an infringement. Unfortunately for Blight and North Melbourne, the ball slewed off the side of his boot and went out of bounds on the full, giving the Hawks victory. In the drawn Grand Final, he was benched by Barassi after three quarters, but kept his place in the team for the replay and was one of the best players in their win.
Blight won the 1978 Brownlow Medal, but suffered a groin injury in the early minutes of the 1978 VFL Grand Final against Hawthorn.
In 1981, while still serving as playing coach, Blight made one of the most bizarre blunders ever seen in a football match. In North Melbourne's Round 14 clash against at the MCG, Blight was on the end of a chain of handpasses deep in the forward zone. He seemed certain to score a goal as he ran into the goal square, only to run past the goal posts and kick the ball through the behinds. As he said after the match when he realised his mistake: "I've never done that before. I'm probably going barmy." Richmond won the match by 43 points and, less than a month later, after six consecutive losses, Blight was sacked as playing coach. Freed of the coaching burden, he then kicked 11 goals against .
Blight was indirectly involved in another infamous football incident during the 1980 Escort Cup grand final against Collingwood, held at VFL Park, Waverley. Blight kicked the ball to Kerry Good as the siren sounded. However, the umpire did not hear the siren and awarded the mark to Good, who kicked the winning goal to win in controversial circumstances.
1983–1985: Return to Woodville After his stint in the VFL, Blight returned to Woodville, serving as captain-coach from 1983 to 1985 before continuing as non-playing coach in 1986 and 1987. He was club best and fairest in 1983 and in his last season of playing football (1985) topped the league goalkicking list with 126 goals.
Other matches Blight also scored 66 goals in 30 pre-season/night series matches - 21 in 11 matches for Woodville and 45 in 19 matches for North Melbourne - as well as 25 goals in 14 interstate/State of Origin football matches - 11 in seven matches for South Australia and 14 in seven matches for Victoria. If these are considered, Blight played a total of 374 senior career games and kicked 877 senior career goals. The VFL/AFL lists Blight's total as 355 senior career games and 832 senior career goals, excluding his pre-season/night series matches for North Melbourne.
Blight also played 19 matches and kicked 37 goals in the SANFL reserves for Woodville: if these are considered, Blight played a total of 393 overall career games and kicked 914 overall career goals.
Coaching and after coaching Blight later became a successful coach famous for employing unorthodox, and at times controversial, coaching methods as attempts to motivate his players.
Player-coach at North Melbourne Appointed player-coach in 1981 after Ron Barassi departed, Blight was sacked as coach after six consecutive losses.Australianrules.com: The 10 biggest mid-season coaching upheavals The following week he rebounded with a club-record 11 goal haul against Footscray, at the Western Oval. Once again, Blight's inaccurate kicking for goal may have prevented him from kicking a club record of a possible 16 to 17 goals. Blight's total as playing coach (Wayne Schimmelbusch was captain) was 16 games (6 wins, 10 losses) and the last of the playing coaches in the VFL.
Back at Woodville Playing coach 1983 to 1985, continued as non-playing coach to 1987. His tenure as coach coincided with the club's most successful season (1986) in the entire history of the Woodville Football Club, when they reached the Preliminary Final. During the season the Warriors (who had changed from being known as the Woodpeckers to the Warriors in 1983) had defeated their hated "big brother" Port Adelaide once during the minor round at Woodville Oval (drawing the oval's ground record attendance of 11,026 to their Round 18 clash), and also in the First Semi-final at Football Park, before going down to eventual premiers Glenelg in the Preliminary Final.
Geelong Football Club senior coach (1989–1994): High-Voltage Football, September Disappointment Blight was appointed successor to John Devine at as senior coach for the 1989 VFL season. In Blight's first year at Geelong, he guided them to the 1989 Grand Final but fell short to Hawthorn by six points. In the 1990 season, Geelong under Blight finished tenth on the ladder with eight wins and fourteen losses, missing out of the finals. In the 1991 season, Blight guided Geelong to finish third on the ladder, but were eliminated in the Preliminary Final by West Coast Eagles. Blight guided Geelong again to the Grand Final in 1992 but fell short again to West Coast Eagles by twenty-eight points. In the 1993 season, Blight guided Geelong to finish seventh on the ladder with twelve wins and eight losses, just missing out of the finals.
The Cats players warmed to his all-out attack philosophy, to such an extent that they broke the record for aggregate points in a home-and-away season (2916), which would again be broken in 1992 when they became the first (and so far only) team to score an aggregate of 3000 points in a home-and-away season. In the semi-final against , aware that the Demons intended to put a hard tag on their classy midfielders Paul Couch and Mark Bairstow, Blight started them on the interchange bench, and Geelong ended up winning by 63 points.
In an interview with Gerard Whateley in 2019, Blight opened up about the day he knew his time as Geelong coach was finished. In Round 12 of the 1994 AFL season, Geelong were hosting at Kardinia Park, and at last break the unfancied Saints held a 26-point lead after kicking seven goals to none in the third quarter. The frustrated home fans directed their displeasure at Blight, booing and heckling him as he made his way down to the huddle. Although he made light of this to his assistant coach and soon-to-be successor Gary Ayres by remarking "I told you, the Geelong people don't like you Hawthorn people", Blight was stung inwardly by the negative reception. Fortunately for the home side, star forward Gary Ablett kicked four of his seven goals as Geelong came from behind to win by three points. The Cats ended up making the Grand Final in 1994 for the third time under Blight, but after a difficult finals series, they were no match for , where Geelong fell short to West Coast by eighty points in the 1994 Grand Final and Blight confirmed his decision after the game to hand the coaching reins to assistant coach Gary Ayres, who replaced Blight as Geelong Football Club senior coach.
One of the strangest incidents as a coach of Geelong was his extroverted decision to stand on a metal box to watch the game against the West Coast Eagles in Perth. His excitement of "seeing the game at ground level", was an attempt to get back to basics and some nostalgia.
Blight coached Geelong Football Club from 1989 to 1994 to a total of 145 games with 89 wins and 56 losses with a winning percentage of 61 percent.
Adelaide Football Club senior coach (1997–1999) : Premiership success