Ronald Dale Barassi was the most recognised figure in Australian rules football for much of his adult life and among the most influential people in the code’s history.
Ronald Dale Barassi was the most recognised figure in Australian rules football for much of his adult life and one can make a cogent case that, aside from the game’s founders, he was also the most influential person in the code’s history.
or Tony Lockett’s move to Sydney in cultural impact - as thousands of kids tore the famed number 31 from their red and blue jumpers.That Barassi left Melbourne arguably spelt a transfer of power from Melbourne, , to the Blues; it coincided with his mentor , Norm Smith’s contentious exit from the Demons and, judged on the ensuing decades, Melbourne needed half a century to recover.
Barassi’s AFL-endorsed presence at the Sydney Swans from 1993, too, was a watershed for that club, which had been in terrible financial and football strife. Tony Lockett followed, as did Paul Roos, and while Barassi was no longer tactically adroit in his coaching twilight, on the measure of rescuing a submerged ship, he succeeded. As Swans people from that time have long cited the role he played in the Swans’ transformation to perennial contender.
He also innovated and his brand as the “super coach” was established when he coached the Blues back from a 44-point half-time deficit against Collingwood in the 1970 grand final to win the premiership, in a game that confirmed Carlton’s new supremacy and Collingwood’s subsequent “Colliwobbles” in finals.
Barassi was a key figure in the first football expedition to Ireland in the 1960s and he was, of course, instrumental in the Irish recruiting experiment at Melbourne in the ’80s that spawned the late Jim Stynes and the late Sean Wight - trailblazers to the legion of Gaelic footballers, now including AFLW players, who’ve jumped codes.
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