Breaking the Dees’ drought: the painful road to premiership pleasure

“I felt relief we are having a good start because the Bulldogs are known to be good starters,” Laumets recalls. “I felt we could still have improved, but that didn’t eventuate. There was so much fumbling in that quarter, and we weren’t kicking straight.”

Melbourne supporter and 1970s cheer squad member Harry Laumets on the final siren in Perth. He flew from the Gold Coast to Tasmania to quarantine, which meant he was allowed into Western Australia.

Todd Viney was another who was enjoying a quiet confidence. “Leading into the game, I was confident we would win, more so than in 1988 or 2000. In those years we were underdogs coming up against really strong teams.

“I felt we were evenly matched. We were one-all against them this year. We played really poorly the one we lost. They got six goals from our defensive-50 stoppages, which is unheard of. No way would that happen again. I thought we would be in a good position on the day, so [I was] quietly confident, but you never know what’s going to happen on the day. We were young, had eight players 21 or younger, so there was some inexperience there. You never know how those players will handle a grand final, so the first quarter we got away to a flyer and the Bulldogs looked like they were the ones under pressure.”

Yet any semblance of a decent buffer was gone within five minutes of the second term commencing, as the Bulldogs brought their own forward pressure. They shifted their approach to goal in these opening minutes of the second term, sending the ball wide to the flank, where their star wingman Lachie Hunter was able to centre it to the hotspot off his hot left foot. A marking contest leading to a ground ball and strong tackling kept the ball alive for Adam Treloar to twice finish off. Two more attacks through the central corridor resulted in a goal to Aaron Naughton, and an attempt from Bailey Smith that drifted wide.

The game had turned the Dogs’ way because they had control of centre clearances and were creating rapid entries to the forward 50. Treloar, Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore all had a hand in the surge.

Demon fans look on during the grand final.Credit:AFL Photos

Ben Brown replied for Melbourne after Jackson marked strongly on the wing and sent the ball deep forward, where Gawn provided a shield for his full-forward in the marking contest.

As a coordinator with the Demon Army, Sophie Galer was among those who had spent the previous fortnight working with the Fremantle cheer squad to ensure that the players had a banner to run through. “What was worrying me was that it was going to be a really close game, and I wasn’t equipped to deal with losing a grand final by a small margin,” she says. “The other grand finals I have seen have been complete blowouts, when within the first 10 minutes it wasn’t going to be Melbourne’s year. But I don’t know if I am mentally equipped to deal with a close match, when we could have won it.”

Sophie and her son Ben settled in to watch the game with their lucky charm, a block of Top Deck chocolate. Crunching through the sweet stuff had worked earlier in the finals series, but now it seemed to be losing its magic. “By the second quarter Ben is saying it’s not looking good,” she recalls.

Several more half-chances went begging. From late in the first term to midway through the second, the Demons added just one goal from seven scoring shots. At the other end, Bontempelli twice drifted in front of his own forwards to mark and goal. Again, the Dogs seemed to be working to a plan. The obvious marking targets of, in the first instance, Naughton and, secondly, Mitch Hannan, formerly a hero of Melbourne’s 2018 campaign, shaped to impose themselves on the aerial duel but effectively protected the Bont’s flightpath from Lever and Steven May. The Bulldog champion lifted them into the lead.

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The Bulldogs’ efficiency was devastating, with four goals and one behind from five forward-50 entries at one stage of the quarter. At half-time, the Dogs led by eight points, 7.5 (47) to 5.9 (39).

Goodwin spoke to the players about the times they had been in similar positions – against Brisbane, and against Geelong in round 23 – and how they had been able to generate a run of goals.

“We spoke about the ground-ball game and the importance of winning contests behind the ball, and our mids’ ability to work back and support that,” Goodwin said later. “We needed to toughen up and work harder in a few areas, but we knew that our run and our fitness within the team would come out strong.

Clayton Oliver tackles Marcus Bontempelli.Credit:AFL Photos

“We spoke about the fact we had been in this position a few times throughout the year, and that’s what you have to draw on as a coaching group. Throughout the year we had experiences where we were down at half-time. One game that stood out really clearly for me was against Brisbane – they had won six or seven games on the trot. We were playing them in Sydney and we were 20 points down at half-time. We spoke at half-time about [how] we have been in this position before [and] we know what momentum looks like. It’s just about resetting and understanding what the game needs.

“We had spoken about Caleb [Daniel] and his impact, and some structural changes that we were going to make to take some advantage back in our favour, and obviously Bont was on fire. He is a quality player.”

Despite having the dominant ruckman in the AFL, Melbourne did not necessarily count on winning the centre-clearance battle. As much as winning clearances, the team relied on winning back possession. Midfielders were relied on to push back into defence to support the back six. This mattered because the introduction of starting zones limited how teams could set up at centre contests.

The ideal shape of Melbourne’s defence during general play had May playing deep, in a kind of goalkeeper role, with Lever able to leave his opponent to make interceptions. That licence relied on him having support from upfield to guard territory and to pressure the opposition’s forward entries. Having regained possession, Salem, Ed Langdon, Angus Brayshaw or Trent Rivers relied on their pace and clean disposal to set up attacks. A tight defence offered the licence to be more aggressive in attack.

During a finals campaign online briefing to supporters, defence coach Troy Chaplin outlined the approach. “Now we have got great stability behind the ball with Maysie and Jake in particular, [so] going into this pre-season [it] was about how can we get more aggressive?” Chaplin explained. “We had trust in all our defenders in beating our men, so it allows our midfielders to be more aggressive in the way they get forward and help our forwards defend our forward half.“

That forward pressure conceded little time to opposition defenders to set up, so they were usually “dumping” the ball out of defence, which allowed May and Lever to control the back half. “That’s when you know we’re in a real good space here,” Chaplin said. “I have great trust in Steve and Jake controlling match-ups.”

For the second half, Oliver was assigned to quell Bontempelli. The early minutes of the third term were tight and contested. Melbourne attacked first, but again registered only a minor score. It had become a habit. The Bulldogs kicked the first goal of the half after Jason Johannisen soared above Jake Bowey on the edge of the goal square. Had “JJ” planted both hands on Bowey’s shoulders to achieve his lift for the mark? Absolutely. Once upon a time, Johannisen would have been penalised, but momentum was with the Bulldogs – and besides, umpires always seem to want to reward the spectacular.

Goodwin saw positive signs, however. “I thought our first 10 minutes of the third quarter, when we were under a little bit of pressure behind the ball, I thought [our players] stood up in their contest work and just steadied the ship enough.″⁣

Still, the breaks continued to run the Bulldogs’ way. Soon after, Bontempelli found space to receive a handpass inside the forward 50, and kicked his third goal, this time on the run. At this point the Dogs had mastered a 40-point turnaround to lead by 19 points. Moments later, Daniel and Gawn clashed on the wing, and Gawn was sent sprawling.

Daniel’s body language seemed to say, “We’ve got your measure.”

From armchairs and sofas across the country, Melbourne supporters were bracing themselves. I always imagined witnessing Melbourne’s drought-breaking premiership sitting in spring sunshine under a cobalt sky at the MCG. Instead, we watched anxiously a television screen from under LED downlights. Nothing was how it was meant to be. I sensed the first flickering twinges of resignation.

The calm before the storm: Melbourne fans before the grand final.Credit:Getty Images

Jan Dimmick had decorated her lounge room in red and blue and draped a club scarf around a framed photograph of her father. It was 120 years since he played for the club as a schoolboy. “I was very nervous in the third quarter, but I hadn’t given up,” she recalls.

Dick Seddon had been thinking the second fortnight’s layoff was no advantage, and now felt the tide had turned against his old club. “I thought they had us in the third quarter, because a 19-point lead in a low-scoring game, which it was at that stage, was a big lead.”

Rod Grinter would normally have been at the game with some of his former teammates, like David Neitz or Paul Hopgood, but under COVID restrictions he was, like most of us, at home. “I have been bullish all year, and that didn’t wane at all,” he says. “I was nervous, like everybody’s nervous, but I felt they were the fittest team in the competition, they were the healthiest team in the competition. I thought about round 23 against Geelong and how they came back.”

Phil Reed is a former cheer squad member who cut his teeth weathering the insults of opposition fans for a team that lost more than it won. He was keeping the faith. “I didn’t feel we were gone, and the reason is that whereas they were slotting them we were having misses at the time,” he says. “The 19 points flattered them, and didn’t necessarily show appropriate reward for our effort either.”

After that bright start, Laumets, sitting on the wing in Perth sunshine with a Richmond supporter and a Hawthorn supporter who were both wearing red and blue for the day, had to concede it was looking grim. It was not that the boys were playing badly, but the goals just weren’t coming.

“I had mild concern at half-time, but when they got to 19 points up, I had my head buried in my hands,” he recalls. “I knew that we were fit. We had been running over teams in the second half, but I didn’t really have that in my head at the time.”

Sue Springfield was more entitled than most to be surprised at how she was witnessing the grand final: not at the MCG, not even at home, but in a hospital bed. Sharing a room with a stranger, she was unable even to barrack. As the Bulldogs scampered to the lead, dark memories returned. “I was very worried,” she remembers. “I did not think we were playing badly, but I was definitely thinking, ‘Please don’t let this happen again.’ After being there in ’88 and 2000, I didn’t want another huge score kicked against us, and an embarrassing defeat.”

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In another part of town, a friend of mine, a Bulldogs supporter, was beginning to feel comfortable. “They need four straight kicks to catch us,” he told himself, as though that task would be too great. Later, he would blame himself for tempting fate.

Goodwin was shaken. “We had a very similar game in the pre-season, and they smashed us by 40 or 50 points at Marvel Stadium, and the two players who killed us that day were Bont and Caleb Daniel. I remember thinking at one stage, ‘Please, this can’t happen again. These two guys that we have learnt so much about in our pre-season game against the Dogs, they can’t get it done against us once again.’ We had to tidy a few things up,” he said.

But there were positive signs too. “I knew we had started to absorb down back. I think it was a period of about nine minutes in the quarter where the Dogs had the majority of the time in their half and we started to stiffen up behind the ball, and we just needed to start to win a few clearances and get the ball back down the other end.”

On the field, Spargo had the thought that Bontempelli could win the game off his own boot. Rivers was thinking, “We didn’t come all this way to lose,” while Oliver was also flattened by the moment. “I was just thinking we can’t waste a whole year, like it was too much hard work, too much effort to lose, I guess,” he later recalled. “We just dug in and got back to our basics.”

The incident between Daniel and Gawn was no turning point. But soon afterwards, everything did change. Gawn went forward, allowing Jackson to take the boundary ruck contest, from which Rivers won possession and kicked to half-forward. Another contest for possession and another boundary throw-in resulted.

At the throw-in, Jackson won front position and tapped towards Jack Viney, who could not take clean possession but bullocked forward, hustling the ball towards Melbourne’s goal. The Bulldogs’ Bailey Smith missed its flight and James Harmes ran from the boundary side, gathered the midair ball and set off at pace. Harmes took maybe six steps towards the true centre half-forward position, pursued by Roarke Smith, who made a despairing lunge to rein him in. Too late – the kick, long and to the opposite flank, was flawless. It dropped into open space, where Fritsch, a metre ahead of his opponent, took it on his chest 30 metres from goal.

Bayley Fritsch celebrates one of his grand final goals.Credit:AFL Photos

Time slowed as Fritsch settled over the ball and moved in. Did anyone breathe while this was going on? As I watched on from home, the kick appeared to be going wide, but the crowd behind the goal and Fritsch’s reaction made clear it was good. It was Melbourne’s first goal since eight minutes into the second quarter.

At the centre bounce, the line-up was Oliver versus Jack Macrae, Viney versus Treloar, Petracca versus Liberatore, and Jackson and Stef Martin doing battle in the ruck, but the outcome was inconclusive. Martin went to ground and Jackson created space for Oliver to gather and clear the circle. Oliver handpassed wide to Petracca, who had separated from Liberatore and now kicked for the goal square, where Gawn shaped to mark against Zaine Cordy.

Between the Flags, by Ian MunroCredit:

Behind the Gawn-Cordy contest was Easton Wood, who left Fritsch to attempt a spoil over Gawn. Fritsch was fourth man up at the back of the pack, and was free to time his jump, which sent Wood sprawling. Fritsch had leapt up like a kelpie onto a sheep’s back, and now he landed like a cat. The ball had beaten all comers but bounced up for Fritsch, who spun towards goal. He gathered and kicked, keeping the ball low and straight. All of 13 seconds of playing time had passed, but the game had been transformed.

Melbourne trailed by seven points and had reversed the momentum.

At the ruck contest restart, Petracca wrenched the ball out of Liberatore’s grip and burst from the centre. Petracca kicked long, this time to the right forward pocket, where Brown, with the lightest nudge, edged his opponent, Cordy, under the ball and took an uncontested mark.

Brown went through his customary long run, which, as risky as it looks, with the ball jiggling and shifting in his grip, works more often than not. And it worked. Just 67 seconds of playing time had elapsed since Fritsch broke the goal drought, and now the Bulldogs led by a point.

Five minutes passed before the next score came. Bowey chipped over the pack into clear space, where Brayshaw pitched full-length forward and marked comfortably inside the forward-50 arc.

Brayshaw was on an angle of something like 45 degrees. Conscious of his less-than-reliable deliberate kicking for goal this year, I consoled myself with the thought that, at worst, he would level the scores. But no, his kick was perfect. Melbourne took the lead, and in all those lounge rooms the words were whispered: “We can actually win this.”

Between the Flags: Making sense of 57 years of heartache, by Ian Munro.Available from www.betweentheflags57.com.au

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