Ask any Essendon fan which of the Club’s premierships is their favourite and there’s a fair chance 1984 and 1985 will figure somewhere in the conversation.

But for a select group of Bombers, that back-to-back triumph was as much a source of motivation as it was pride.

Darren Bewick, Chris Daniher, David Grenvold, Michael Long, Gary O’Donnell and Peter Somerville arrived at the Club shortly after those premiership wins.

Their first chance to become premiership players came in 1990, but that didn’t end well.

A few years later, it was their time.

“We had a little saying among out group that it was ‘our time’,” Bewick told the Friday Footy Panel.

“We missed out on 1990 and all we kept hearing about was 1984 and 1985 and we wanted our time.

“That was our little motto that we used to run out with.

“I remember Gary O’Donnell always running down the race saying ‘our time’ and we used that as our spur.”

But at half time in the Preliminary Final in 1993, it looked like another Essendon finals campaign was going to end in disappointment.

The Bombers trailed Adelaide by 42 points at the main break.

“Bomber Thompson probably showed for the first time that he was going to be a good Coach,” Bewick said.

“At half time he was the one that really drove us to get back to what we needed to be doing and that was followed up by ‘Sheeds’ and his little speech and we were able to turn things around pretty quickly.”

The Essendon side that ran out that day included eight players aged 20 or younger.

But Bewick said that inexperience was a positive.

“During the year we’d had a number of games where we’d come back from being down at half time and three quarter time,” he said.

“I think just the group we had … we had Misiti, Mercuri, Fletcher and those boys coming through at 18-19 years of age – they held no real fear towards what was going to happen.

“The Preliminary Final was just a classic example of it.”

The Bombers kicked 11 goals to two after half time, with Bewick ending the match with six goals.

The 11 point Preliminary Final win was followed by 44 point win in the Grand Final against Carlton a week later.