Nothing is worse than the 2014 elimination final.
F*cking team of mediocre, pea hearted, hacks.
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I was going to leave the game before half time, against Adelaide earlier this year.
And then I was like “where am I going to go?”
So I sat at the bar at the G and watched the races.
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FTFY.
The rest was just unnecessary.
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Interesting start to the list.
I have to say I wouldn’t have given this game much of a thought. But I haven’t put together a top 50 list either, so it’s tough to measure where it sits against the 49 others.
I’d be interested how you filter in the ‘heartbreaking close losses’, the ‘demoralising smashings’ and the disappointing ‘finals performances’.
For reference, I’m not sure how to place any of the losses this year in the list. The Adelaide loss would be in there and maybe the Bulldogs game, but the rest probably wouldn’t make it. Simply because I didn’t expect us to perform much better with the players we had to send out there.
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Not likely, and certainly not in the next 4 years
Good call. We had played some very good football, sometimes scintillating, in the first few weeks of 2014. This game killed our momentum.
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There was no real science to it, but I think I mostly put emphasis on the performance against the expectation, rather than the disappointment felt after the loss. There are some where the emotion and occasion swayed me to add them to the list, but I will spoil that I left out the 2017 Sydney H&A game in Sydney, for example, because we actually played a decent game of footy for 99% of it.
I’m sure I’ll have missed a few that really should be there, upon reflection, but that’s also kind of the point. The games that hit me hard didn’t necessarily hit others the same way, and finding out why is the fun of it.
I can say that I only had two from 2025 for pretty much those reasons.
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I reckon it was having the names on the back of the jumpers which did us in.
I was at that game but had a lot to drink so my recollection of it is hazy apart from jumpers had names on them and Reiwoldt absolutely fkg smashed us.
The missus and I left at quarter-time. The Dogs supporter sitting next to us asked “are you leaving already?”, to which I replied “I know where this is heading”.
That 2019 game will get mentioned a lot in here, but another one that always stood out for me as an especially bad performance was our loss to the Dogs in round 3, 2018. They’d been hammered in the first two games and were on the bottom of the ladder. They only won by 21pts that day, but it felt like 80+. It was absolutely ■■■■■■■ woeful.
Some other nominees I’ll put forward:
- The 2009, 2011, 2017 and 2019 elimination finals
- Round 1 2019 loss to GWS
- Anzac Day 2008, 2010, 2018
- Round 14 2011 loss to Hawthorn
- Round 10 2012 loss to Melbourne
- Late h&a season hidings against Carlton in 2010, 2011 and 2012
- Round 3 2017 loss to Carlton
- Basically any loss to Geelong in the past 15-20 years
- Round 1 2025 loss to Gold Coast
Yeah, they hurt.
It may not be fact but my memory seems the recall that plenty of games against them are over by quarter time.
Worst is relative….. it could be because Essendon played poorly, played poorly against a bad team they should have beaten, played amazing against a better team but lost in some sort of agonising fashion, lost because the umpires farked us (probably many of these) or because of the occasion (a final, an Anzac Day).
It’s funny how some really make you more angry than others.
Sorry if this has been mentioned, but the 1992 game against the hawks at the mcg, where we were trounced by 23 goals or some margin, was at that game until 1/2 time, then left. A shocker, but since then there have been worst results that that, with margins not as bad, but rather the team seemed to of given up and over ran in last 1/4 or 3/4 time.
Blake Caracella, Chris Heffernan, Justin Blumfield, and Gary Moorcroft after the 2000 grand final
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The only saving grace was it made the entire 2000 season so much sweeter. Oh the good times were amazing.
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Number one for me. That Melbourne side was VFL standard at best
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The FC one that Fev went nuts in.
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Maybe if this thread goes well enough, someone will take on the reigns for a pre-2000 list, which I’d love to see.
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There was a brisbane one at Marvel that we cocked up a huge 3QT lead in that makes this list.
2009 is the highest ranking of those, not a single wimper given. Oh and while we on footy park. The 2006 ■■■■■■■■■■■ over there.
An underrated loss that many have probably forgotten came in R15, 2012, against St Kilda. We’d smashed the Dogs the week before and were expected to do the same to the Saints. Instead, they came out and destroyed us by 71 points. The loss also marked the beginning of our slide down the ladder.
Not our worst defeat by any stretch, but it’s one that sticks in my mind.
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