Dustin Fletcher's Unusual Junior Days

[GoDons]

Cops a lot of unjustified crap from our supporters.

He had a very good season and at quarter time was behind only Long as the best player on the ground.

Calthorpe's job on that day is also overlooked.

As brilliant as Long was that day, we won the game because we won nearly every position on the ground.

Olarenshaw was brilliant in 1993, at the time, I thought he'd go a lot further than he ended up going.

As you say, Calthorpe had a great game. I'll never forget his goal, he seemed to try and repeat the effort numerous times in following seasons but could never quite match it.

And you sum it up beautifully, we won that game all over the ground.

 

[GoDons]

Dean Wallis was more than handy that day. Mil Hanna was absolutely flattened. Mark Harvey at half back and Bomber Thompson patrolling half back/centre just gave us that toughness and experience we needed to guide the kids. Another unsung hero from that game was Peter Somerville. He jumped early all day to negate Maddens effectiveness from the centre square and I will always love Sean Denham for the job he did on Williams that day. Williams spent a large proportion of the day complaining and punching Seany.
The lessons from 93 that I think Sheedy lost is you have got to play the kids and you cant have a talented top 6 group of players with no depth- our bottom few players in that side were Watson, C Daniher and Grenvold all good solid players in 93 (Watson special earlier) while Carltons bottom few were Mark Athorn, Tim Powell and Brent Heaver- enough said.
BTW Ian Robertson's commentary is so pro Carlton it is hilarious.

Some very good points.

And I'd say that Ian Robertson's commentary was laughable in general, he truly had no idea.

[youtube]idwSFx7O9bA[/youtube]

It never gets old.

Ah...the nostalgia.

 

[Amazing Bombers]

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Thanks for that. I enjoyed that.

 

[Darealrath]

I still cringe when I see young Jimmy jump for joy when he kicked that goal.

What a glorious day though

 

[foj1]

Did that group of players and specifically Sheedy underachieve? The collective group yielded the 93 flag and some went on to 2000.
I have a theory that throughout sheedys career he had a tendency to become complacent and take his eye off the ball when his team was doing well. I think winning in 84 and 85 wasnt enough for the players we had while 93 and 00 probably wasnt enough either.
When Hawthorn had a great group of players they won 83, 86. 88, 89 and 91.
They also played in the GF in 84, 85 and 87.
Interested in others opinions.

 

[Darealrath]

Did that group of players and specifically Sheedy underachieve? The collective group yielded the 93 flag and some went on to 2000.
I have a theory that throughout sheedys career he had a tendency to become complacent and take his eye off the ball when his team was doing well. I think winning in 84 and 85 wasnt enough for the players we had while 93 and 00 probably wasnt enough either.
When Hawthorn had a great group of players they won 83, 86. 88, 89 and 91.
They also played in the GF in 84, 85 and 87.
Interested in others opinions.

Agree.

You know how Parkin says Sheedy sides were always capable of coming back from a big deficit, but on the flipside always susceptible to giving up a big lead, because he would never leave things as is for any length of time ? I think you can apply this to not just an individual game but between seasons too.

He was pretty unlucky to in '99 and '01 though. '99 we were 2 points away from a flag and in '01 we had a horror injury run all year that doesn't get acknowledged enough.

 

[FandangoDingo]

Olarenshaw was brilliant in 1993, at the time, I thought he'd go a lot further than he ended up going.

Oh, Ricky's still going. Haven't you seen his brilliant work riding the boundary?! Smooth as silk!!

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Cops a lot of unjustified crap from our supporters.

not for his recent TV work. Any crap there is entirely justified

[youtube]idwSFx7O9bA[/youtube]

I still can't believe I had my back to teh play, walking up the stairs of the Southern Stand after getting a pie and beer, when that occured. The roar was amazing, I turned round only in time to see Hanna sprawled on the ground like a sack of shit

 

[GoDons]

Did that group of players and specifically Sheedy underachieve? The collective group yielded the 93 flag and some went on to 2000.
I have a theory that throughout sheedys career he had a tendency to become complacent and take his eye off the ball when his team was doing well. I think winning in 84 and 85 wasnt enough for the players we had while 93 and 00 probably wasnt enough either.
When Hawthorn had a great group of players they won 83, 86. 88, 89 and 91.
They also played in the GF in 84, 85 and 87.
Interested in others opinions.

As far as I'm concerned, '99 was the only one that we definately should've won.

In 2001, Brisbane were hot at the right time and we weren't. We were battling injuries and, whilst on paper I believe we were a better list than Brisbane, their players were right on top of their game. I don't think that that one got away, I think we were just unlucky.

Should we have won another flag after 1993? That's a tough call. 1993 was an incredible year that no one expected to happen. 1994 was a year where we just couldn't get guys consistently on the park and such, we couldn't really gain any momentum. I think we could've gone further in 1995, but things didn't quite click at the right time. Then in 1996, we missed the Grand Final by a point. Then again, given that I was born in '84, it's hard for me to judge.

1999 is the only one that I really look back on as the one that got away. We were far too complacent and Carlton's big guns stepped up.

 

[Shane Hird]

Did that group of players and specifically Sheedy underachieve? The collective group yielded the 93 flag and some went on to 2000.
I have a theory that throughout sheedys career he had a tendency to become complacent and take his eye off the ball when his team was doing well. I think winning in 84 and 85 wasnt enough for the players we had while 93 and 00 probably wasnt enough either.
When Hawthorn had a great group of players they won 83, 86. 88, 89 and 91.
They also played in the GF in 84, 85 and 87.
Interested in others opinions.

Have to disagree on that one.

Sheedy gets ready for multiple flags when an Essendon side hits top gear...but we have had our fair share of bad luck when trying to follow up on GF wins.

One thing I would never call Sheedy is complacent...its the opposite I reackon. He muck around with line-ups to often and played duds who had wore out their welcome.

'93 was a freak year imo. Sheedy has said before that the side's blistering form that season was totally unexpected from the coaching group.
Who could have ever imagined such a young group of players playing so well all season?
I've heard people call '93 a 'soft year' and that we were lucky to have won a flag. Thats crap.

Every football lover should watch that match and see how a bunch of teenagers from nowhere ( a big number of them came from the Essendon district) beat everyone including a Grand Final victory against a highly skilled,star studded Carlton line-up in a match that was supposed to be an easy..but hard fought...win for the blue baggers.

Don't forget players like Chris Daniher who did their job all year that glorious season

 

[loopy_cam]

Hirdy said in his book that the only reason we won in 93 was because of the lack of a 'power team'. Eg. Geelong 07, Us 00, Brisbane 01 02 03.

By the way has anyone read Hirdy's book? It's a great read. I'm just finishing it now.

 

[Longy413]

I have a theory that throughout sheedys career he had a tendency to become complacent and take his eye off the ball when his team was doing well. I think winning in 84 and 85 wasnt enough for the players we had while 93 and 00 probably wasnt enough either.

Or did he make too many changes to keep winning?

1986 he made changes that weren't necessary.

1994 he was of course burnt by injuries and we almost had to rebuild again at the end of 1994/1995.

2001 he made sweeping changes, some forced because of salary cap and retirement. Losing Wallis, Long, Bewick, Barnes left a massive hole.

I tend to agree with the theory that 1996 and 1999 were the ones we missed out on, although injuries in the 96 Prelim might have made it tough the following week.

 

[Docc03]

From the 93 Granny lve allways loved watching Wanganeen getting the ball in the back pocket kicking to longy who gives a perfect weighted handball, then Wanga kicking to the half forward line gets it back but couldnt finish off the goal as his legs were like jelly

 

[Longy413]

"Back to the backline Gavin"

 

[GoDons]

Hirdy said in his book that the only reason we won in 93 was because of the lack of a 'power team'. Eg. Geelong 07, Us 00, Brisbane 01 02 03.

By the way has anyone read Hirdy's book? It's a great read. I'm just finishing it now.

Surprisingly for those kind of books, I actually found it incredibly interesting. Usually I'm the type that will read autobiographies over a collection of summers, but I read that one in just a few weeks.

It's got a lot of good insights, as well as a lot of very true stuff about simply life.

 

[mark1301]

Agree.

You know how Parkin says Sheedy sides were always capable of coming back from a big deficit, but on the flipside always susceptible to giving up a big lead, because he would never leave things as is for any length of time ? I think you can apply this to not just an individual game but between seasons too.

He was pretty unlucky to in '99 and '01 though. '99 we were 2 points away from a flag and in '01 we had a horror injury run all year that doesn't get acknowledged enough.

Parkin & Walls (throw in Jezza as well) should cop more flak for their under achieving Carlton sides. With all the blokes they had at their disposal for that length of time such as williams, kernahan, bradley, sos, ratten, dean, madden etc the list goes on 2 flags 8 yrs apart was a very poor return. Sure not all those guys were together for that whole period but a lot of good players came & went between 86-01 for them yet its always Sheedys Essendon teams that cop the flak. They didn't make finals for 4 yrs straight in the late 80's early 90's it was a pathetic effort for the side on paper they had yet those 2 don't mind heaping it on Essendon for so called under achieving. They couldn't beat a bunch of kids in 93 so we had the last laugh there.

 

[Shane Hird]

Parkin & Walls (throw in Jezza as well) should cop more flak for their under achieving Carlton sides. With all the blokes they had at their disposal for that length of time such as williams, kernahan, bradley, sos, ratten, dean, madden etc the list goes on 2 flags 8 yrs apart was a very poor return. Sure not all those guys were together for that whole period but a lot of good players came & went between 86-01 for them yet its always Sheedys Essendon teams that cop the flak.
They didn't make finals for 4 yrs straight in the late 80's early 90's it was a pathetic effort for the side on paper they had yet those 2 don't mind heaping it on Essendon for so called under achieving. They couldn't beat a bunch of kids in 93 so we had the last laugh there.

So very true.....

It's hard to pinpoint what went wrong with Carlton on GF day '93.

They should have flogged us bunch of youngsters that day (much like we did to a very young Demon side in 2000),but they were overran by highly skilled footpassing by Mercs,Ricky,Joey etc and had no idea how to shut down a skinny dark fella by the name of Long.

If we had of kicked straight it could have been an absolute slaughter and a record margin.

 

[Merv]

So very true.....

It's hard to pinpoint what went wrong with Carlton on GF day '93.

They should have flogged us bunch of youngsters that day (much like we did to a very young Demon side in 2000),but they were overran by highly skilled footpassing by Mercs,Ricky,Joey etc and had no idea how to shut down a skinny dark fella by the name of Long.

If we had of kicked straight it could have been an absolute slaughter and a record margin.

 

[Shane Hird]

Never get sick of seeing that poster Merv


Getting back to Fletcher's season that year...if we didn't have him in the side at full-back that year,who would have been in his spot?

We were lucky to have him in the side all year and I wonder how the whole team line-up would have changed if we never had him available.

Wallis or Harvey at fullback? Lucky for us they got to roam around the HB line and had reliable Fletcher to look after the gun FFs of the opposition.

 

[Don Corleone]

Never get sick of seeing that poster Merv


Getting back to Fletcher's season that year...if we didn't have him in the side at full-back that year,who would have been in his spot?

We were lucky to have him in the side all year and I wonder how the whole team line-up would have changed if we never had him available.

Wallis or Harvey at fullback? Lucky for us they got to roam around the HB line and had reliable Fletcher to look after the gun FFs of the opposition.

David Flood. He was the truly unlucky player to miss that match, not Kickett. I never rated him that highly but he was magnificent in that finals series covering for the injured Mark Harvey.

Anthony Daniher was the bloke who made way for Fletcher to play most of that year so he would probably have still been our full back had Fletch not forced his way in.

Daniher and Alan Ezard, along with Terry Daniher and Simon Madden the year before, were the players forced out by the arrival of the Baby Bombers. T Daniher missed the opportunity to play 300 games for Essendon when Sheedy dropped him in '92. Would Sheedy have had the balls to do something like that in the last few years of his reign? Not a chance in hell.