Essendon versus Hawthorn for more than 50 years was a clash just like any other in the then-VFL competition. Until 1983, that is.
That season, as two teams both climbing towards premiership status butted heads, this time literally, seemingly out of nowhere sprung one of league football’s great rivalries, marked by relentlessly tough affairs played for high stakes and with a catalogue of controversial incidents.
These two teams would meet in three straight grand finals between 1983-85, the score 2-1 to Essendon, a host of other finals, and even when September wasn’t part of the equation, their clashes were no less fierce.
That they remain decades later, the respect of each club towards the other only ever grudging, the enmity still present in every tussle, even more than 35 years on.
It’s been some rivalry. And on the eve of another big Essendon-Hawthorn stoush, we're looking back at the five games we’ve enjoyed the most.
Round 22, 2009
Essendon 16.20 (116) def. Hawthorn 14.15 (99)
Essendon’s finals hopes hung by a thread just before half-time of the last home-and-away game of 2009, trailing Hawthorn by 28 points in a game which had to be won to reach September, against an opponent for whom the stakes were just as high.
But a huge bump from Essendon captain Matthew Lloyd on Hawthorn’s Brad Sewell straight after the break changed the complexion of the match.
Lloyd’s charge would see him suspended. In fact, this would prove his final AFL game. But his ferocity rallied his teammates, the Bombers not having reached finals for five years.
Essendon slammed on the first three goals of the second half as some key Hawks went head-hunting instead of pursuing the ball.
The margin had been reduced to five points by the last change, with first-year player Michael Hurley kicking two goals and looking increasingly dangerous, and Brent Stanton working tirelessly up and down the ground.
A young Michael Hurley lifted the Bombers to their first finals series in five years. (Photo: AFL Media)
Goals to Jarrod Atkinson and Ricky Dyson to start the last term gave Essendon the lead. And two more to a now rampaging Hurley finished the Hawks off.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly’s work at his FOOTYOLOGY website.
