My worry about the Swans is they brought Charlie in to be their big dog forward but I think he’s lost his edge. It will be interesting to see how he fares under finals pressure.
To be fair that’s probably not the worst thing. He’ll be a good player for them, but imo even though he’s had a good couple of seasons at Carlton as the key forward target, hell be more effective as a cog in the Sydney machine.
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The Other Darkest Day in Sport
By Paige Turner | The Hun
It was already over before anyone said it out loud.
July 28, 1979. Waverley Park. A winter afternoon that felt colder as the day went on, the wind cutting across a half-filled ground, 12,000 spectators scattered and watching something they didn’t yet understand would become permanent.
Fitzroy 36.22 (238) defeated Melbourne 6.12 (48).
A 190-point margin.
The biggest ever recorded.
And still, somehow, it didn’t arrive like a shock. It built. Quarter by quarter. Break by break. By half-time the gap was 81. By three-quarter time it was 141. By then, the game itself had disappeared — replaced by a number that kept growing.
Melbourne, under coach Carl Ditterich, were a club already under strain. On the field, names like Gerard Healy, Garry Baker and Ray Biffin were left trying to stem something that had moved beyond effort.
Across from them, Fitzroy sensed it.
Bob Beecroft kicked 10. Bernie Quinlan, Mick Conlan and Garry Wilson turned movement into momentum, and momentum into something far more ruthless.
This masthead believes the deeper truth of that day: it wasn’t just dominance. It was imbalance.
Because the wider world in 1979 carried the same tone. Political instability. Economic unease. Systems shifting, confidence thinning. Nothing collapsing outright — but plenty beginning to fray.
On a suburban ground in Melbourne, that same feeling took shape in football form.
One team accelerating. The other unable to respond.
And once that gap opened, there was no mechanism to close it.
No rotations. No modern defensive grids. No way to stop the bleeding once it started.
That’s how 190 happened.
Not as a miracle. As a process.
Which is why, nearly half a century later, the number still stands untouched.
Until now, perhaps.
Because today, at Marvel Stadium, the conditions are different — but the warning signs feel familiar.
The Essendon Football Club arrive under Brad Scott with recent form that doesn’t just suggest vulnerability — it outlines it.
Heavy defeats. Structural lapses. Games that shift quickly and don’t come back.
Opposition sides have found space too easily, moved the ball too cleanly, and once momentum builds, Essendon have struggled to halt it.
This masthead can reveal the uncomfortable parallel: that’s exactly how margins start to stretch.
The Western Bulldogs, led by Marcus Bontempelli and supported by a forward line that converts pressure into scoreboard damage, are not the kind of side that lets a game drift.
They press. They surge. They compound.
And if the early signs go their way, the question will change.
Not who wins.
But how far it goes.
Because modern football insists a margin like 190 can’t happen again. Systems are tighter. Players are fitter. Games are controlled.
But history doesn’t deal in guarantees.
It deals in moments where one team keeps going — and the other can’t.
And when that happens, numbers that seem impossible start to move.
190 has stood since 1979.
But if a game ever threatens it again, it won’t announce itself in advance.
It will look normal.
Until suddenly, it isn’t.
Until the scoreboard ticks past 100.
Then 150.
And somewhere in the final quarter, a number no one expected starts to come into view.
A double tonne.
The next darkest day.
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Mate they’re hanging on and trying top up after winning the premiership in 2023, they have a good excuse, we’re on our 6th rebuild in 20years and can’t even say the word “rebuild”
The club posted a gameday post on facebook and got roasted so hard that they deleted it 
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Ita going to be up with that Geelong v Melbourne game at Hillbillies Park.
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Sounds like a long straw for BT…
I can see multiple posts on their FB about today’s game… maybe your algorithm is just giving you a well earned pain break?
6 goals 12 - to be fair Ds just needed to kick straight.
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Namely Brad
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Being in the Essendon social media team and membership team must be such a ■■■■ job.
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Yes I would be happy if we could kick 6 goals 12
But also demands players not give up at the first sign of struggle.
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Good
I see a few posts on the clubs Insta referring to Brad’s comments about “we’re all going to die”
I doubt he’ll be taking tonight’s after game presser.
10 minutes into the first quarter is when all of the Bulldogs fans will be leaving because they’ll be bored by then
Bont 30 & 3 goals
Dale 30+
Darcy 5 goals
Richards 30+
Naughton 4goals
Genuinely don’t think we have the capability to stop any of these things happening.
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Dale loose man off HB to have 50
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Even that ■■■■■■■■ West will get in on the act and kick a few
lockdown GUELF to the rescue