That was 2001. Near the end of the season. Stephen Alessio was a much underrated player.
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Love these threads.
A range of possible options through the years…
2002 R9 2002 (Sydney 83 vs Essendon 85) - First game at Stadium Australia. The standard of games there never did improve over the years. Swans struggling and one of Eade’s last games as coach. Ricky Mott missed a shot in the last minute to win it.
2002 R17 2002 (Richmond 53 vs Essendon 54) - Richmond were pure dog ■■■■ in 2002. This was Matthew Knights last game, as a player, and it took a Paul Salmon snap in the last minute to win it.
R3 2005 (Essendon 77 vs Hawthorn 75) - A game that started in 34 degree sunshine, before a third quarter thunderstorm and Hawthorn comeback. Hawks were abysmal at this point and still a couple of years away from Clarkson turning them around.
R5 2005 (Essendon 83 vs Collingwood 69) - Probably the worst ANZAC Day game in memory. We won? Great. But it was bad from both clubs.
R9 2007 (Richmond 84 vs Essendon 92) - This was a week after Richmond had lost by 25+ goals against Geelong. They hadn’t won a game and we were strong favourites… yet as has been the norm in the last two decades, we did everything to lose it. Richardson denied a goal deep in the last quarter that may have even sealed the game for Richmond stands out.
R17 2010 (North Melbourne 119 vs Essendon 122) - Don’t let the high scores fool you. North Melbourne were lucky to field a team this particular night and the crowd was abysmal. We really shouldn’t have won.
R7 2014 (Essendon 73 vs Western Bulldogs 65) - The first of a two consective wins in the most garbage games of the decade. There is nothing else to say!
R8 2014 (Brisbane 57 vs Essendon 65) - Read above.
R12 2014 (GWS 66 vs Essendon 81) - A few weeks later… but read above.
R5 2015 (St Kilda 80 vs Essendon 82) - Essendon Complacency Syndrome on full display in this one.
R15 2015 (Essendon 69 vs Melbourne 60) - Already mentioned in this thread, but a miserable, wet and freezing Saturday at the MCG. We were coming off a 20 goal loss the previous week, so it should have been a great win on reflection, but it was hard work to watch.
R21 2016 (Essendon 75 vs Gold Coast 69) - Yes, it was a win in the ‘top up year’ … probably shouldn’t be on this list … but deplorable standard and Gold Coast were (and arguably still are) diabolical.
R9 2019 (Essendon 60 vs Fremantle 53) - Remember even ONE highlight from this game? No? Neither can I.
R8 2020 (Adelaide 59 vs Essendon 62) - 2020 was the worst year for AFL, and admittedly everything else, ever. This game defined the season.
R9 2021 (Essendon 68 vs Fremantle 61) - Scroll up and read Round 9 2019. This was only marginally better.
R21 2023 (Essendon 73 vs West Coast 72) - We snuck over the line, at home, against one of the worst teams you’re ever likely to see.
R22 2023 (Essendon 86 vs North Melbourne 77) - See above.
R9 2024 (West Coast 71 vs Essendon 77) - After a good start to the season, this was the reality check that we really weren’t that good.
R12 2024 (Richmond 74 vs Essendon 86) - We needed a reminder three weeks later of that above fact.
R7 2025 (West Coast 75 vs Essendon 77) - Eagles are appearing a lot.
R9 2025 (Essendon 65 vs North Melbourne 62) - A Blitz poster at the time commented that winning this game was “great for club and winning culture”. Yeah… nah.
R12 2025 (Essendon 81 vs Richmond 58) - Abysmal Friday night Dreamtime.
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2001 nm comeback game. That is my domino effect game that they went from an all out hungry attack focussed group of players to a bunch of players who thought they could put in the barest minimum effort and could come back from anywhere and still win.
I often wonder if being belted that day they would have woken them up and re aligned them for the season.
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This is the famous “who is number 7 for freo” game.
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Thanks. That 2017 last round was the one I was thinking of.
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Amazing how all these games were are reciting are this century. Can we think of any from the 80s and 90s just for something different? I remember we beat Freo by a point in 1996 at the G. Did the bare minimum against a team that sucked, which has been par for the course the last 10-15 years.
To be fair, most games since 2000 are also in this century.
This may sound stupid because we won by so much but I think it was a game against Fark Carlton around 2005/06 where we led by 99 points at halftime in the rain.
Was quite pleased that we were on track to break our record margin against them and hopefully win by 20-25 goals. We were up by 100 points near the end of the game when Digby Morrell had a shot close to or after the siren and scored a point to bring the final margin back to 99 points.
This may have been the birth of our club developing the lack of a killer instinct to bury a team when we had the foot on the throat for the next 20 plus years.
James Hird’s last win as coach.
I didn’t feel like this was a “bad” win. We badly needed a morale booster after that game against St Kilda. Daniher had a great game and Edwards provided a spark. We just were not a good team in 2015.
Surprised it took so long to pull out a couple of those recent dreadful Dreamtime fall over the line matches.
I’m going to be a bit controversial, but I’m going to throw in the first game in Melbourne against GWS.
Kyle farking Reimers kicks 8. That alone tells you just how poor the opposition was.
It wasn’t a game of AFL. It was men against boys. It was like watching one of those early 80’s Foster’s Cup games between Hawthorn and, say, Claremont, when the VFL team could be bothered trying. Honestly, it may as well have been Essendon vs. Lilydale 3rds.
In amongst the records tumbling and the avalanche of goals, I had this uncomfortable feeling. We weren’t particularly good, yet here we were…nearly 100 points up by 1/4 time.
It honestly just wasn’t a fair fight, and I wasn’t fooled at all.
An exhibition game gifted to all clubs that year. Some twice…
That was against GC. My enduring memory was being disappointed we fell a goal short of hitting a ton at quarter time.
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Ooh yeah… quite right. It was.
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The first game against GWS in Melbourne was also a bad win. Week after Anzac Day and they kicked 5 goals to our 1 in the first quarter. Then they led by five goals early in the third. We pulled a finger out and won by enough, but shows just how unserious we were even in our good year of the last 20.
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Can we include the late-season draw against Fark Carlton in 2014?
Jumped early and found ourselves five goals down, then came back and had a five goal lead late in the third, only to give it up and settle for a draw. Matthew Watson kicked four or five on us.
Fighting for a spot in the 8, we had beaten them by 80+ early in the season. We produced some of the most bipolar football during Bomba’s season as coach during 2014, and this game typified it.
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Adelaide away 2024 and Port home 2025 could also make the list
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The killer instinct was well dead by that point, sadly. I’m almost impressed that we could be bothered to be almost 100 up by half time considering it was a dead rubber. Mark Johnson certainly didn’t take that game lightly.
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I won’t break my own rules, but it would have made either this list or the worst losses list if it was anything but a draw.
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Some great nominations in there. I have quite a few of those already locked in, but I lacked some context for some of them. Will have to reconsider my ordering at the very least.
To be fair, 2000s onwards is the brief set - purely because I can’t make lists for eras I wasn’t around for.
Have always said that I’d love to see someone else take a look back at the mostly glory years prior to this century.
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