Echoing the thoughts of Sam Kekovich earlier in the week, Barry Cable says North Melbourne was destined for success in 1975 following its Grand Final failure the year before.
RELATED: Kekovich - "Redemption was swift"
Beaten by 41 points at the hands of Richmond in 1974, the Roos received no sympathy from coach Ron Barassi.
"Barass came off the ground with all the other players and he really wasn’t happy," Cable told The West Australian’s Steve Butler.
"I was one of the last coming in (to the rooms) and I heard this, ‘That’ll be enough, I don’t want to bloody hear all this well done boys. We didn’t win the bloody premiership, we lost the bloody premiership’. Just the fact that we’d finally played in a grand final just wasn’t good enough."
RELATED: Dench - Barassi "didn't accept defeat"
Cable said those words were all the motivation he and his teammates needed to go one step better in 1975.
"I remember that very clearly and from that time on, we were locked in. To a large degree, it really didn’t matter what Hawthorn did or how they did it, or if it had been another team – we would have beaten them.
"As a team and a bunch of blokes, we all believed in ourselves and that we could do what needed to be done."
PRESS PLAY above to watch the players' thoughts on Barassi | YouTube
Having lost to the Hawks just two weeks earlier, the Kangaroos responded with a dominant display on the biggest stage.
Cable had a big impact, with 25 possessions against legendary enforcer Leigh Matthews.
"From that first siren bounce, that was it, she was on and they (the Hawks) never recovered. We just beat them all day. We may not have been that close socially, but we were very close when it came to the football side of it. It made a huge difference."
While he went on to play in a second premiership two years later, Cable said nothing could top the celebrations after the club's first flag.
"Listening to the old North Melbourne people … some were crying and some hadn’t believed they would ever see the day that North would win a premiership because they’d been following them for 50 years," he said.
"Some of them were in their 70s and 80s who had been following the club since day one. So it was a huge night for the North Melbourne footy club. Before we went to the dinner, we went back to Arden Street and jumped on the back of a big truck they had there and they introduced us one at a time.
"The whole bloody oval was just flooded with people. It was the greatest part of the whole show for me, personally."
40 years on, North will honour the history making team on Saturday night at Etihad Stadium, with a motorcade of premiership stars before the match against the Hawks and 70’s theming throughout the night.
RELATED: Match Centre: Round 5
