Amazing coincidences in football

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Falconista said:
Only two teams under the current finals system [last 25 seasons] have won a premiership from outside the top four- Bulldogs 2016 and Lions today. It's quite the coincidence that Josh Dunkley played in both!
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Fun fact - fourth has never won the flag in the current system. It’s actually the top three that a QF flag team always comes from.

Also Dunkley as a player being passed over as a father-son selection by the Swans to then go and beat them twice in GFs is kind of freaky.

Another thing - in the last two Swan GFs they have lost to a team containing a player who has won a GF against them previously at a different club eight years earlier -

Isaac Smith 2014 and 2022 (also played in a GF loss against the Swans in 2012).

Josh Dunkley 2016 and 2024.

This is a very rare occurrence. The only other example I know of is Doug Wade who won two flags Vs HFC; as a Cat in 1963 and as a Kangaroo in 1975. He’s also amazingly lost GFs to Richmond with both of his teams in 1967 and 1974.
 
TheRealComptroller said:
Fun fact - fourth has never won the flag in the current system. It’s actually the top three that a QF flag team always comes from.

Also Dunkley as a player being passed over as a father-son selection by the Swans to then go and beat them twice in GFs is kind of freaky.

Another thing - in the last two Swan GFs they have lost to a team containing a player who has won a GF against them previously at a different club eight years earlier -

Isaac Smith 2014 and 2022 (also played in a GF loss against the Swans in 2012).

Josh Dunkley 2016 and 2024.

This is a very rare occurrence. The only other example I know of is Doug Wade who won two flags Vs HFC; as a Cat in 1963 and as a Kangaroo in 1975. He’s also amazingly lost GFs to Richmond with both of his teams in 1967 and 1974.
Click to expand...
In another universe, dunkley was drafted by the swans, tagged neale out of existence and annihilated us today.
 
TheRealComptroller said:
Fun fact - fourth has never won the flag in the current system. It’s actually the top three that a QF flag team always comes from.

Also Dunkley as a player being passed over as a father-son selection by the Swans to then go and beat them twice in GFs is kind of freaky.

Another thing - in the last two Swan GFs they have lost to a team containing a player who has won a GF against them previously at a different club eight years earlier -

Isaac Smith 2014 and 2022 (also played in a GF loss against the Swans in 2012).

Josh Dunkley 2016 and 2024.

This is a very rare occurrence. The only other example I know of is Doug Wade who won two flags Vs HFC; as a Cat in 1963 and as a Kangaroo in 1975. He’s also amazingly lost GFs to Richmond with both of his teams in 1967 and 1974.
Click to expand...

Gerard Neesham, the inaugural coach of the Fremantle Dockers and himself a Sydney Swans player for one season in 1992 had an astonishing WAFL Grand Final record as follows:

  • Playing for Swan Districts, Neesham would play in Grand Final victories over Claremont in 1983 and his former team East Fremantle in 1984 but would play in a losing Grand Final against South Fremantle in 1980.
  • Playing for East Fremantle, Neesham would play in a winning GF team over Subiaco in 1985, but a loss by the Sharks to Subiaco in 1986. He also played in East Fremantle's losing side to Perth in 1977, the Demons most recent premiership to date.
  • Playing for Claremont as captain-coach in 1987, 1988 and 1989, Neesham's Tigers would defeat Subiaco in 1987, lose to the Lions in 1988 (the fourth year in a row Neesham had met the Lions on GF Day), then thrash South Fremantle in 1989.
  • As non-playing coach of Claremont in the 1990s, Neesham's Tigers would lose to Swan Districts in 1990, defeat Subiaco in an absolute rout in 1991 and a similar demolition of West Perth in 1993.

So as player and coach, Neesham would win flags four times with Claremont but would win against them the only time he played against them in a GF in 1983. He would win three times over Subiaco once with East Fremantle and twice with Claremont and lose to them twice once with East Fremantle and the other time with Claremont. Neesham's experience with Swans saw wins with them over his other teams Claremont and East Fremantle in 1983 and 1984, but a loss to them with Claremont in 1990. His two GF encounters with South Fremantle saw Swan Districts thrashed by the Bulldogs in 1980, but a similar trouncing by Claremont over South Fremantle in 1989. Neesham was never able to best Perth in a Grand Final with the Demons trouncing the Sharks in 1977 but was never defeated by West Perth in a GF, the Tigers easily winning the 1993 premiership decider over the Falcons. The only WAFL team that Neesham had no Grand Final encounters with either as a player or a coach is the East Perth Royals.
 
The Stuart Dew GF Olympic leap year stat continues

2000 - Central District (Premiers)
2004 - Port Adelaide (Premiers)
2008 - Hawthorn (Premiers)
2012 - Sydney (Premiers)
2016 - Sydney (Runners-up)
2020 - Gold Coast (14th)
2024 - Brisbane (Premiers)

2020 was an outlier with Dew having a 5-1 record with Olympic Leap Year premierships
 
Red and White teams seem to do badly in Grand Finals. The Sydney Swans yesterday lost their fourth Grand Final post 2012, three of these by big margins, with this adding to a generally poor GF by the Sydney Swans prior to this with the Swans in their South Melbourne days losing many more grand finals than they won.

In lower grades South Melbourne/Sydney never won a reserves grade premiership, and just once in the Under 19s, way back in 1956. The NEAFL came and went pretty fast but in its 9 years from 2011-2019 the Sydney Swans were runners up five times without winning a grand final once.

WAFL team South Fremantle have a very poor Grand Final record after the 1950s, with some premiership droughts, heavy grand final losses and upset losses in other GF's that the Bulldogs should in theory have won comfortably. SANFL team the North Adelaide Roosters have a number of terrible Grand Final performances to their name, and even when North won their two few and far between premierships in 1991 and 2018 both grand finals were mired in controversy.

VFL team the Northern Bullants (previously Preston) also has an unflattering Grand Final record and hasn't won the premiership for 40 years, while Geelong West in their VFA tenure lost more Grand Finals than they won.

NRL team the St George Dragons certainly had no problems winning premierships in a golden era from the mid-50s to mid-60s, but struggled to do so before that and afterwards, save for two quick premierships in 1977 and 1979. However this short burst of success would lead the Dragons into a 30 year premiership drought with a number of Grand Final losses both for St George on its own and when it entered into a joint venture with the Illawarra Steelers (which never won a senior GF) from 1999. The Dragons finally broke the hoodoo against the Roosters in the 2010 GF, but since then the Dragons have mostly struggled, and never really challenged for another GF position in 14 seasons since then.
 

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terrybull said:
2017 Brisbane wooden spooners, Richmond Premiers.

2024 Richmond wooden spooners, Brisbane Premiers.
Click to expand...

Add to this 1980 - Richmond Tigers premiers, Fitzroy Lions wooden spoon. And in all three seasons - 1980, 2017 and 2024 - the Geelong Cats were beaten preliminary finalists. Another feline coincidence was in 2020, which saw Richmond beat Geelong in the Grand Final, with Brisbane a beaten preliminary finalist. And going back to 1944 when Fitzroy defeated Richmond in the Grand Final, their feline cousins Geelong collected the wooden spoon.
 
I also posted this on the weird scores thread - in Round 13 (which seems apt) in 1976 and 1977 Melbourne and the Bulldogs took turns at doubling each other's scores on each other's home ground.

Round 13 in 1976 saw Melbourne trounce Footscray 14.20-104 to 7.10-52 at the Western Oval. A year later the Bulldogs took their revenge on the Demons, Footscray giving Melbourne a 15.12-102 to 7.9-51 thrashing at the MCG.

The 1977 score is a coincidence in itself - it is the exact same score by which the Bulldogs beat Melbourne in the 1954 Grand Final. And it gets even stranger when considering that Melbourne thrashed reigning premiers Carlton 15.12-102 to 7.9-51 in 1948 - which turned out to be a Demons premiership year.

The only other time that a score of 15.12-102 to 7.9-51 has come up was hardly memorable or significant - it was by St Kilda over Hawthorn in 1929 - but what is quite strange that the only four times there has been a 102-51 game for a 51-point margin, it has always been 15.12-102 to 7.9-51. There have never been any different scoring combinations for the same aggregate, like 16.6 to 8.3, 14.18 to 7.9, or 13.24 to 6.15.
 
2022 Grand Final - Will Hayward kicked the opening goal for the Swans, blown out by 81

2024 Grand Final - Will Hayward kicked the first goal of the Grand Final for the Swans, blown out by 60
 
emuboy said:
Add to this 1980 - Richmond Tigers premiers, Fitzroy Lions wooden spoon. And in all three seasons - 1980, 2017 and 2024 - the Geelong Cats were beaten preliminary finalists. Another feline coincidence was in 2020, which saw Richmond beat Geelong in the Grand Final, with Brisbane a beaten preliminary finalist. And going back to 1944 when Fitzroy defeated Richmond in the Grand Final, their feline cousins Geelong collected the wooden spoon.
Click to expand...
Ditto 2022 with Richmond beaten in the first week of the finals by Brisbane and Geelong beating Brisbane in the Preliminary Final and ultimately winning the flag, against Sydney
 
The 2 most recent losing Grand Finalists to come back and win the next Grand Final are Hawthorn 2013 and Brisbane 2024

Chris Fagan featured prominently in both teams' coaching staffs
Both defeated Geelong in a Preliminary Final (Funnily enough, the Lions and Hawks were sitting on 10.10-70 at 3/4 time)
Both won the Grand Final on September 28

Another odd facet to it is that in both teams' Final prior to defeating Geelong, they defeated a Sydney team with a score of 15.15-105
 
juice t said:
The 2 most recent losing Grand Finalists to come back and win the next Grand Final are Hawthorn 2013 and Brisbane 2024

Chris Fagan featured prominently in both teams' coaching staffs
Both defeated Geelong in a Preliminary Final (Funnily enough, the Lions and Hawks were sitting on 10.10-70 at 3/4 time)
Both won the Grand Final on September 28

Another odd facet to it is that in both teams' Final prior to defeating Geelong, they defeated a Sydney team with a score of 15.15-105
Click to expand...
Both teams had an unwanted losing streak with Hawthorn famously having the Kennett curse hovering over the Hawks and Brisbane not winning against Geelong in Victoria for 20 years until these preliminary finals. They were also down by 20 or more points at one stage.

Brisbane played the 2nd preliminary final vs Geelong on a Saturday as with the 2004 game.
 
Well the last two posts have convinced me that the Lions are on for another 3 peat. Thanks guys.
 
The number 60 and 6 in the finals for the Lions and Swans

Brisbane outscored Carlton 60-0 in the first half of their first Elimination final

Sydney won by 6 goals in the preliminary final

Brisbane kicked 6 goals in their semi-final comeback during the last quarter vs GWS

Katy Perry had a 6 on the stage

Sydney won by 6 points in their qualifying final

Sydney scored 60 points in the AFL grand final

Brisbane doubled the score with 120

Brisbane won by 60 points
 
Last edited:
2001 saw West Coast sack Ken Judge after a poor season, finishing two places off bottom spot with 5 wins (14th out of 16th)
2024 saw West Coast sack Adam Simpson midway through the season, finishing two places off bottom spot with 5 wins (16th out of 18th)
 
BigVic said:
2001 saw West Coast sack Ken Judge after a poor season, finishing two places off bottom spot with 5 wins (14th out of 16th)
2024 saw West Coast sack Adam Simpson midway through the season, finishing two places off bottom spot with 5 wins (16th out of 18th)
Click to expand...
2002 new coach: finals
2025 new coach: ?

Would be some turnaround

Sent from my SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
emuboy said:
Add to this 1980 - Richmond Tigers premiers, Fitzroy Lions wooden spoon. And in all three seasons - 1980, 2017 and 2024 - the Geelong Cats were beaten preliminary finalists. Another feline coincidence was in 2020, which saw Richmond beat Geelong in the Grand Final, with Brisbane a beaten preliminary finalist. And going back to 1944 when Fitzroy defeated Richmond in the Grand Final, their feline cousins Geelong collected the wooden spoon.
Click to expand...
2007 Richmond finished last and their feline rival Geelong won the flag
 
TheRealComptroller said:
Fun fact - fourth has never won the flag in the current system. It’s actually the top three that a QF flag team always comes from.

Also Dunkley as a player being passed over as a father-son selection by the Swans to then go and beat them twice in GFs is kind of freaky.

Another thing - in the last two Swan GFs they have lost to a team containing a player who has won a GF against them previously at a different club eight years earlier -

Isaac Smith 2014 and 2022 (also played in a GF loss against the Swans in 2012).

Josh Dunkley 2016 and 2024.

This is a very rare occurrence. The only other example I know of is Doug Wade who won two flags Vs HFC; as a Cat in 1963 and as a Kangaroo in 1975. He’s also amazingly lost GFs to Richmond with both of his teams in 1967 and 1974.
Click to expand...
Posted in another thread:

The seven players to win two grand finals with different clubs against the same team:
  • Mick Grace vs South Melbourne (1899, 1907)
  • Frank Caine vs South Melbourne (1907, 1912)
  • Charlie Norris vs Carlton (1910, 1916)
  • Doug Wade vs Hawthorn (1963, 1975)
  • Brent Crosswell vs Collingwood (1970, 1977)
  • Isaac Smith vs Sydney (2014, 2022)
  • Josh Dunkley vs Sydney (2016, 2024)
Doug Wade was identified as unique as he also lost two Grand Finals against the same team (Richmond) - playing for Geelong in 1967 and North Melbourne in 1974.
 

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Amazing coincidences in football

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