Yeah, dead on. Just looking it up, the odds were very even (about $1.80 vs $2), but I had no expectation of winning that game.
Some of the historical odds are quite interesting. 2000 Essendon were the biggest favourites ever (or at least since the mid 90’s) which isn’t a surprise. Geelong were actually heavier favourites against Hawthorn in 2008 than against Port in 2007 which is pretty ridiculous. And the biggest upset in Grand Final modern history is apparently Adelaide over St Kilda in 1997, which is bizarre considering the Saints were hardly an all time great team.
Another game I remember absolutely nothing about. It’s weird how some random games stick in your mind for years / decades and others are forgotten about instantly.
Speaking of the “Predator” game against Brisbane, I assume that’s going to make an appearance later on this list? It’s kind of a weird one, because it didn’t seem like that big a deal when it happened (a moderate loss against a team who’d made Finals the last couple of years on their home ground? Eh, who cares, right?), but in hindsight, it was a real harbinger of doom.
I could definitely see that game being on the list assuming that the criteria leaned more heavily into historical significance or foreshadowing. For mine, it doesn’t, but that’s only because I’m mostly opting for games that were just absolutely horrendous on their own merits.
There’s a world where we lose that game against Brisbane, brush it off, and win the flag anyway. I think it’s mostly what happened after that game that makes that loss at the Gabba so memorable.
I watched parts of that game on YouTube a while ago just to satisfy my curiosity, as I had no memory of the game. Was surprised to find that we were only 15 pts down in the last quarter after having kicked poorly earlier in the game. Brisbane overran us in the end but, in isolation, it was just a run-of-the-mill bad game to my eyes.
Yeah, I think it was more of a great win for Brisbane than a bad loss for Essendon and was much more significant for them than us. I still think it should be on the list for historical reasons though. I genuinely don’t think Brisbane win the flag without winning this game first as it really kickstarted their season (and dynasty).
People tended to dismiss this game because of the number of quality players we were missing. There was a stretch of four or five games in '01 (this one included) where we were without eight to ten Premiership players.
For me, it wasn’t until the PF against the Hawks that I knew for sure that we were well and truly cooked. We were very lucky to get over the line and the Lions absolutely smashed the Tigers without breaking a sweat.
Yeah, when you look at the lineup for the Brisbane game, for example, our bottom 5 were so far off the rest and would have been lucky to get a game at other clubs: Mark Bolton (12th game), Cory McGrath (2nd game), David Hille (eventually a good player but was also playing his 2nd game), Rob Forster-Knight (4th game) and Aaron Henneman (18th game and arguably had already peaked). It wasn’t exactly quality depth.
I recall some hype before this game, the plucky upstarts against the ascendant power, but they make a joke of that before long. Otherwise entirely forgettable
Halftime was pretty brutal. I actually can’t remember if I was at the game or not. But the half time reaction by those that attended wasn’t too pleasing (and rightly so).
Since the Sheedy era, I thought that maybe it wasn’t so much a player issue with us but more of a coaching issue at the club.
Then the following Footy Show, Goddard was on the panel and was grilled by Sammy in his usual combative self asking Goddard why they played such a slow paced possession style game. He responded he didn’t know because that style of footy was not the way they trained. Sammy kept on nagging a bit and Goddard said it wasn’t a coaches instruction either. It just sort of happened.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but knowing what I know now, Geelong set up to slow the ball so that they could set up behind the play and get their intercept game going. And they knew that they could beat us at the contest too. So I’m not sure how you increase the pace of the game.
We also had a fitness problem. This was the year I first saw Richmond being able to out run our midfield from side to side across the middle and also between the arcs. They’d out work us with and without the footy.
We’d built the team leaning towards winning the contest and trying to work our way forwards with ‘better than average’ kicking skills. And then got burned when the game changed and it became the Richmond style of win the contest, get it forward, run up to that contest, defend like hell, get it forward, repeat style.
I’m not sure that’s really accurate about Richmond. They were known for essentially conceding (low quality) clearances in exchange for setting up behind the ball and killing teams on the rebound.
I associate “win the contest, get it forward and lock it in” much more with, say, the late Malthouse era Pies who were notorious for dominating inside 50s and time in forward half stats. In fact, I think they were the reason why time in forward half became a stat people cared about.
You may be right.
I think once they got Lynch, they had more options with their forward play and probably leaned towards a slightly different style.
It felt like with them, it was get it long forward somehow and let your small guys get to it and trap it in and keep moving forward.
The Malthouse way was more, when you didn’t have another play, hug the boundary, create a stoppage, get numbers there and move it forward.
It seemed like during the Richmond era, teams were fine to attack the pockets as well for a similar reason. They get their numbers to that contest (whether it’s a throw in or ball up) and try and force the opposition to panic by trapping it in.
And Riewoldt kicked a couple from outside 50 in pouring rain.
On the way to Jolimont Station, I was bemoaning JJ’s miss from the square, and a nearby St Kilda fan pipes up with “you’ve got to accept losing”. I asked him to tell us how since they’d had years of practice at it.
The two cops nearby were worried about a confrontation, but ■■■■■■ themselves laughing.