Having that young side in on Thursday night, got me thinking about my favorite season of football. 1993.
I was 9 years old. I just thought it was normal to have 7-9 first and second year players in the side, and just trouncing teams each week. Mercuri, Fletcher, Calthorpe, Misiti, Hird, Olarenshaw, Hills.
The game that won me over was the Ablett vs Salmon kickout, and winning that game with the full forwards kicking big bags of 14 & 10 goals.
I remember listening to the Preliminary final on the radio, witha huge come from behind win.
Then belting Carlton in the Grand Final.
Unfortunately I thought that we’d be winning premierships every year for the next 5-6 years.
1996 we lost the Prelim by a point. 1999 we lost a Prelim by a point. We waited 7 years to win our next flag. Times were tough!
2000 is obviously…I mean we were just on another level. It was pure theatre.
The super clean disposal, the toughness, just watching us…relentlessly pick apart our opponents and knowing we were going to.
But I have to admit that despite how it ended, I really loved ‘96.
I think that year was just about the best football, just the overall quality in the competition.
And the slow build over the season where we went from…oh, we don’t suck, to…oh, we’re actually competitive against the top sides to…wait, are we the best team in the league?
1993 was a special season. I never stopped believing. Awesome year.
In 1996 we lost two finals by one point each to Brisbane and Sydney and belted West Coast at the MCG in between. I enjoyed that season as a 14 year old. Hird was at the peak of his powers and we still had Wanganeen. Lloyd was showing signs of becoming a stud key forward.
96 is an underrated season… especially when people continually talk about 99.
I was so devastated in that Prelim.
I stand by my opinion that if Lockett didn’t push Fletcher over the fence, we would have won.
What a hard call!
1981 - after years of struggle it finally clicked. 16 wins in a row, a massive win over the pies at VFL Park, Watson’s gymnastic over Carlton in the night final and some unforgettable wins over Carlton and Richmond during the season. It all fall short at the end but what a great year!
1984 - the last quarter of the GF!! We finally overcame the Hawks
1985 - fantastic. The Bulldogs still think they could have beaten us in the GF - as if! (Although Sheedy still thinks they would have been more of a challenge than the Hawks)
1993 - we came from nowhere
2000 - virtually unbeatable. It took a party trick to beat us. And if we had kicked straight in the last quarter they still wouldn’t have beaten us.
Lockett was coming back from injury and hadn’t kicked more than 35m in ever, and he somehow found an extra ten metres to score that point.
Devastating.
And we won’t talk about the missed shot from ten metres out against Brisbane…
Ess vs NM was the Grand Final that football deserved.
Oh well.
Im just looking at Draftguru of the 99 season.
They’ve rated Mark Mercuri’s performance for that season a C+
He finished second in the Brownlow that year!