Fifteen years ago, Essendon and the Brisbane Lions met in the grand final, pitting master coaches Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews in a decider for the first time since 1990.
Oh how the times have changed.
This Sunday the two sides, now coached by John Worsfold and Justin Leppitsch, will fight it out to avoid the wooden spoon.
Both teams have just one win each for the year – Essendon against Melbourne in Round 2, and Brisbane against the Gold Coast Suns in Round 4 – both by the unlucky margin of 13 points.
The Bombers were always going to struggle this season, after having 12 current players, including captain Jobe Watson, Michael Hurley and Brent Stanton, among others, suspended for the entire season after the Court of Arbitration of Sport found them guilty for taking banned substances in 2012.
That threw Worsfold head-first into a battle he didn’t think he’d have to take on after the AFL’s original ruling, which found the players wouldn’t be suspended for their role in the ill-fated supplements program four years ago.
In addition, youngsters such as Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, Darcy Parish, Michael Hartley and Mason Redman have been exposed to the vigours of AFL football much earlier than expected, as the club struggles through its worst season in a decade.
This comes with the top-up players the Bombers had to recruit during the pre-season in order to field a competitive team.
Amidst the adversity, and despite having not won a match since April, the Dons have been competitive in recent weeks, running St Kilda and Richmond both to within 20 points in the past fortnight.
They will start favourites in an AFL match for the first time this year when they host the Lions at Etihad Stadium. This means they’ll have the added bonus of their large and loyal supporter base, who will be the biggest winners should the club notch just its eighth victory since the start of 2015.
We’ve seen several times this year how supportive their fans have been of the decimated playing list, such as Rounds 8 and 13 when they went down to North Melbourne and the Greater Western Sydney Giants, despite taking the fight right up to them.
There is also no doubt the club will be much stronger in 2017 when the banned players, most of whom have recommitted to the club, return.
In stark contrast to the Bombers’ plight, the Lions have been woeful all season, and this has placed massive pressure on Leppitsch, who has won just 12 of 60 games since his appointment in 2013.
But it’s the manner of these defeats, and their low home attendances this season, which have many concerned.
Their most recent match saw them suffer a horrific 79-point thrashing at the hands of finals-bound GWS at the Gabba, in front of just 10,195 fans.
It was easily their lowest ever home attendance, worse than the 12,700 fans who turned up to see the Giants win their first match on foreign soil two years ago.
Only the 83-point loss to the Dockers in Round 12 was heavier than the defeat they copped against the Giants, while they were also savaged after a soulless, 78-point loss to Collingwood in Round 8, failing to score a single point in the first quarter.
Unbelievably, this is the same team that got to within three points of defeating the Sydney Swans at home back in Round 6.
That is the closest Leppitsch’s men have come to winning another match, with their next closest defeat being a 26-point loss to the Suns at Metricon Stadium the week before the Giants massacre.
Fox Footy commentator Dwayne Russell said during the Lions versus Giants coverage that the game against the Bombers is one that the club would be expected to win. However, most other experts will disagree.
If recent form and favouritism hold, and the Bombers win, then Leppitsch’s position as Lions coach could become untenable.
But while a loss for the Lions could prove catastrophic, for Essendon it will be just reward for the tough times the club and their fans have endured, and could go a long way towards avoiding the wooden spoon for an 83rd consecutive year.
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