Great grand final matchups we were robbed of

[Defabs]

96 Essendon shouldn't have even been in The prelim let alone the granny. West Coast should have got to host the semi in Perth.

The ridiculous finals system from 1994 to 1999 effectively gave 5th and 6th place a double chance as it was rare for 1st and 2nd to lose to the 7th and 8th ranked teams in week 1.
Then the 6th place loser was awarded with a home SF! Ess in 96 and Carl in 99 should have been in Vegas in early Sep

 

[AlwaysHawks15]

Lol at 1994. Geelong vastly superior team to north. Beating them 3 times that year. What that year was robbed of was a fit geelong taking on west coast. Our entire midfield of hocking, couch, bairstow was injured that final series, we lost our star centre half foward weeks before the finals started and ablett was hobbling on one leg come finals.

And north still couldnt get over the top of us.

We beat both you and the Eagles that year. Eagles twice including belting them by 70 points over there early in the year. Had we not lost to lowly Fitzroy at Waverley we would have finished higher up and avoided an elimination straight away. Both 1993 and 1994 id argue we were good enough on our day to win it all.

 

[johndemonic]

Could Port Adelaide vs Brisbane 2024 be a candidate?

No. I think the best and most realistic hope of a great granny, was Joel afartey kicking a behind instead of a goal and gifting the home prelim to GWS to smash Port. But I still think it would've been reminiscent of 2001 GF with the Lions kicking away from GWS by 3-4 goals in the last quarter. No one was beating them yesterday.

And looking back on 2022, the Geel v Coll rematch is the most obvious one fresh from memory.

God damnit Sydney,

 

[Stottzy]

Hawthorn vs Geelong. Just any year in that Kennett Curse period. Had the prelim in 2013 been the gf, it would have been talked about as one of the great grand finals. They deserved another grand final match up.

 

[Blackhawk42]

Hawthorn vs Brisbane this year would have thrown up the most intriguing narrative from the final 6 teams.

Two in-form teams from outside the top 4 who looked gone at round 6.
Hawthorn barely losing to Brisbane even during the Lions recent years of top 4 finishes.

I thought Sydney vs Brisbane was probably second on that list, so glad that's where it ended up despite the eventual beating.

 

[Hawksboy72]

Hawthorn Vs Collingwood 1990.

Hawthorn belted the pies at Waverley late that year with the chief bagging 11 with his helmet on.

Very easily could have been the 3rd leg of a 4peat.

On SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Defabs]

Hawthorn Vs Collingwood 1990.

Hawthorn belted the pies at Waverley late that year with the chief bagging 11 with his helmet on.

Very easily could have been the 3rd leg of a 4peat.

On SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Hawks couldn’t get past the EF! If they lost in the PF, your call is probably fair but they were nowhere near the GF that season

 

[BigVic]

Sydney vs Port Adelaide 2024 had Port not blew their first final

Hinkley vs Horse and battle of the perennial finals losers.

Another one would've been the Sydney Derby Sydney vs GWS Giants if not for GWS' collapse in the semi-final at home against the eventual premiers.

 

[Angus Young]

2007 should of been Geelong V Collingwood
2024 should of been Geelong v Brisbane

 

[threesixpio]

Then the umps pulled our pants down in 13 &15 to gift you guys the flag

umps made sure you didn’t kick straight …ok

 

[CakeEater]

umps made sure you didn’t kick straight …ok

Umps gifted you 4 soft goals which is more than your winning margin was.

 

[peetoo]

umps made sure you didn’t kick straight …ok

Check the bit where Fyfe admitted it was a mistake that they didn’t do goal kicking practice before the grand final in very swirly conditions

 

[CaptainHowdy87]

My one regret over our dynasty isn’t you weren’t able to beat the giants and thus we were denied the chance to smack you in the grand final.
Crying shame really.

At no point during the Tigers dynasty did they "smack" Collingwood, so I'm not sure why you think that would've happened if we'd played you in the 2019 Grand Final. Our games were all pretty close.

 

[dean33]

At no point during the Tigers dynasty did they "smack" Collingwood, so I'm not sure why you think that would've happened if we'd played you in the 2019 Grand Final. Our games were all pretty close.

No one would have got near us in that game. Probably the best we’d played over those 4 years.

 

[FrustratedTiger]

No one would have got near us in that game. Probably the best we’d played over those 4 years.

Yeah but we were playing witches hats. I'd have loved to see us go against Collingwood in 2019. I'm confident that we'd have won it but what a cracking game it would have been and how alive would Melbourne have been that week

 

[joe444]

The ridiculous finals system from 1994 to 1999 effectively gave 5th and 6th place a double chance as it was rare for 1st and 2nd to lose to the 7th and 8th ranked teams in week 1.
Then the 6th place loser was awarded with a home SF! Ess in 96 and Carl in 99 should have been in Vegas in early Sep

Oh lord a thousand times yes, even if it is the sole reason Adelaide's remarkable '97-'98 performance occurred.

1997: finish fourth and are rewarded with a HOME semi-final against second-placed Geelong (the Colbert match)
1998: even more ridiculous. Finish fifth and are obliterated by Melbourne. Season over? No no no ... stay around and play a semi-final anyway.

Ironically, instead of robbing us of great Grand Finals, it gave us two rippers.

Essendon's uberchoke in 1999 is what robbed us a Grand Final.

Oh, and potentially 1991. Denied a rematch between Geelong (utterly crippled during the series) and St Kilda (ludicrously eliminated under Final 6 version 1) For almost that entire decade we had a cr@p system.