With all the talk about Melbourne’s dominance of recent seasons, I was doing some thinking about teams who have had similar eras of regular season dominance over a period of seasons and found the following rather eerie comparison.
Melbourne’s 2003-2008 team and Manly’s 1991, 1993-1997 teams could share scarily similar legacies from their eras of dominance now that both teams have qualified for the 2008 Grand Final.
Check this out for almost identical eras:
Melbourne 2003 (5th on ladder 15-0-9) – lost in Elimination Semi Finals to Bulldogs 30-0 to finish 6th.
Melbourne 2004 (6th on ladder 13-0-11)- lost in Elimination Semi Finals to Bulldogs 43-18 to finish 6th.
Melbourne 2005 (6th on ladder 13-0-11) – lost in Elimination Semi Finals to Cowboys 24-16 to finish 6th.
Melbourne 2006 (1st on ladder 20-0-4) – lost in Grand Final to Broncos 15-8 to finish 2nd.
Melbourne 2007 (1st on ladder 21-0-3) – won in Grand Final over Sea Eagles 34-8 to win Premiership.
Melbourne 2008 (1st on ladder 17-0-7) – to be determined but at least into the Grand Final Stage.
And if you look at Manly’s run towards their three straight Grand Finals in the 1990s – putting in their 1991 season instead of their 1992 one when they finished eighth for continuity of previous three playoff appearances before the three straight Grand Finals – you get:
Manly-Warringah 1991 (2nd on ladder 14-1-7) – lost in Minor Semi Final to Canberra 34-26 to finish 4th.
Manly-Warringah 1993 (4th on ladder 16-0-6) – lost in Minor Preliminary Semi Final to Broncos 36-10 to finish 5th.
Manly-Warringah 1994 (4th on ladder 16-1-5) – lost in Minor Preliminary Semi Final to Broncos 16-4 to finish 5th.
Manly-Warringah 1995 (1st on ladder 20-0-2) – lost in Grand Final to Bulldogs 17-4 to finish 2nd.
Manly-Warringah 1996 (1st on ladder 18-0-4) – won in Grand Final over St.George 20-8 to win Premiership.
Manly-Warringah 1997 (1st on ladder 15-2-5) – lost in Grand Final to Knights 22-16 to finish 2nd.
When you consider that the Sea Eagles got knocked out in the Top 5 format in what is relatively the same stage as the second week of the Top 8 Finals Format, both sides endured three fruitless years (and in two of those years got beaten by the same side convincingly – Brisbane over Manly and Bulldogs over Melbourne) in the playoffs before starting to dominate during the regular season and make three straight Grand Finals.
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