One of the most important rounds on the AFL calendar has arrived, and the highlight of it will be Saturday night’s annual ‘Dreamtime at the G’ clash between Richmond and Essendon.
What started as a daytime match held during NAIDOC week in 2005 has, over the past decade, evolved into an annual celebration of Indigenous players involved with our game.
The match was another invention of former Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, who also came up with the two other special fixture matches involving the club, the annual Anzac Day match against Collingwood and the recently-introduced Country Game against the Geelong Cats.
The Tigers won the first two fixtures, the first in 2005 by 26 points and the second by two points after the Bombers had hit the front midway through the final quarter, only for two behinds to get the Tigers home.
The third fixture, in 2007, saw Essendon register their first win in the fixture in thrilling circumstances.
The Tigers had led by two goals before the Bombers pegged back the margin with less than five minutes remaining, and the stage was set for a grandstand finish.
Then, Matthew Richardson took a mark, played on and kicked what he thought was the match winning goal before it was overturned because he was deemed to have pushed his opponent in the back.
Consequently, he then gave away the crucial 50-metre penalty incurred from playing on after the free kick had been paid against him, and the Bombers would go on to win the match by eight points.
This denied the Tigers what would have been their first win of the 2007 season and counts as one of many defeats which defines the club’s recent, prolonged period of mediocrity since their last premiership win in 1980.
Their lack of finals success has been well-documented, as has their inability to win close matches when under pressure.
This has came to a head in recent weeks, with the club losing its last three matches by a combined total of just ten points.
In Round 8 against Fremantle, Brandon Ellis thought he’d completed an amazing comeback by the Tigers when he goalled to put them in front with 21 seconds remaining, only for David Mundy to kick the winner for Fremantle after the final siren.
And last week against GWS, Shai Bolton’s goal with over a minute remaining was overturned on review, after which the Giants went from end-to-end to kick the match winner through Jeremy Cameron.
The club’s recent rotten luck has led to Channel Nine’s Footy Classified labelling them as a “laughing stock”.
"Richmond's a laughing stock, everyone's laughing at them" – Caro on Richmond's current form. #9FootyClassified pic.twitter.com/6VVwLcH3i3
— Footy Classified (@FootyClassified) May 22, 2017
Back on topic now, and the Tigers would bounce back from that fateful 2007 match to win the 2008 edition by 38 points after keeping the Bombers goalless in the opening quarter.
The Bombers, who by that point had a new coach in Matthew Knights after Kevin Sheedy was moved on at the end of 2007, would hit back with the next two wins to leave the Dreamtime head-to-head tied at 6-apiece.
After the Tigers won the 2011 fixture by 16 points, the Bombers would score a hat-trick of wins over the next three years, with the most impressive of them being a 50-point win in the 2014 fixture.
However, the Tigers have, since then, not only won the last two fixtures, but have also won their last five against the Bombers overall.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
From twelve annual Dreamtime at the G matches, each team has won six apiece, meaning whoever wins this Saturday night will reclaim the lead in the head-to-head since this match became annual in 2005.
On the basis of their recent impressive form, the Bombers will start favourites to defeat the Tigers for the first time in nearly three years.
In the past fortnight, last year’s wooden spooners have scored wins over the Geelong Cats and West Coast Eagles, both recent victors over reigning premiers, the Western Bulldogs, in the same time frame.
Six nights after being embarrassed by the Bombers at the G, the Cats bounced back by defeating the premiers in their first game at Simonds Stadium for the year last Friday night.
On the other hand, the Eagles side the Bombers thrashed by 61 points last Sunday was the same Eagles side that had defeated the reigning premiers at home nine days earlier (and will very likely feast on an injury-ravaged GWS Giants side at home this Sunday).
A win for John Worsfold’s men will see them achieve a clean sweep of annual fixtures involving the club, after they’d also won the Anzac Day clash and the Country Game against the Pies and Cats respectively.
On the other hand, the Tigers will be desperate to bounce back after losing their last four games, the last three of them by a combined total of ten points as mentioned above.
They had started the season 5-0 but their latest form slump will lead to questions being asked of them as to whether they are finals contenders or whether they’re simply trying to make it there to make up the numbers.
But how appropriate would it be for Damien Hardwick’s men to bounce back in what is their biggest match for the season?
That’s one question to be asked ahead of the teams’ only meeting this season, which comes in spite of both clubs finishing in the bottom six last year.
Such has been the success of the Dreamtime at the G match in the twelve years it has been held, it was announced last year that the fixture would remain for at least the next decade.
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