Polo 1985 Coupe not firing!

I've had a problem recently that my polo '85 1.3 (HK engine) is not firing, it has a new coil, new leads, new plugs, dizzy cap and rotor arm.
I've spoke to a couple of people and they seem to think it's the module inside the distributor.
I found out when i had a look at it that the **** who installed the coil put the positive and negative terminal round the wrong way.
Should be making a trip to the scrappies for a distributor, but does anyone know if this would have damaged the coil itself?