Where did that come from - Unexpected performances?

[Marmozet]

2013 Elimination Final vs Collingwood was unbelievable. Just making finals was a big thing for us after our previous 5 seasons, but to actually win one against Collingwood on a Saturday Night at the MCG?

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Wonder how many Pies fans were thinking it was a dead rubber when they were up 24-5 at the 23 minute mark of the first quarter that night..

It was a dead rubber regardless.

 

[Lord of the Pies]

Rolling the Cats by 102 points in 2006 was somewhat unexpected they were on the rise albeit inconsistent that year. It was also Swan's breakout game 26 touches and 4 goals.

 

[Igloo]

Geelong smashing a top 4 Western Bulldogs by 101 points in 2010 I think. Crazy

I'm pretty sure this was the game where we started pretty well, then Tim Lane thought it would be appropriate to say "the days of domination are over."
It's like he went down onto the field and told that to every Geelong player. So we can thank Tim for that terrible loss.

 

[Pugz89]

I'm pretty sure this was the game where we started pretty well, then Tim Lane thought it would be appropriate to say "the days of domination are over."
It's like he went down onto the field and told that to every Geelong player. So we can thank Tim for that terrible loss.

Off topic but I popped at your new avi.

 

[Hinkley29]

1994 semi final Geelong vs Carlton. Hocking, Couch, Hinkley, Mansfield all out. Geelong finished 7th in season, Carlton 2nd. Aaron Lord has 24 possessions and 1 goal in his second game. Geelong wins by 33 points to knock Carlton out of the finals.

However, the all-time Geelong "where did that come from" game was round 5 2007. Geelong were 2 and 3 having lost to North at KP in Round 5. Thompson's job is in jeopardy. From memory the game was 50:50 with the bookies or maybe even Richmond as slight favourites. Geelong kick 20 goals to 2 in the first half, end up winning by 26 goals (157 points to be exact) and then win the next 13 straight. Because of how good Geelong ended up being in 2007, people forget how disappointing they had been until this game, and how improbable the rest of the season would have seemed at the time. I can vividly remember being genuinely shocked at how awesome Geelong were in that game, and it came out of nowhere.

 

[North park]

1994 semi final Geelong vs Carlton. Hocking, Couch, Hinkley, Mansfield all out. Geelong finished 7th in season, Carlton 2nd. Aaron Lord has 24 possessions and 1 goal in his second game. Geelong wins by 33 points to knock Carlton out of the finals.

However, the all-time Geelong "where did that come from" game was round 5 2007. Geelong were 2 and 3 having lost to North at KP in Round 5. Thompson's job is in jeopardy. From memory the game was 50:50 with the bookies or maybe even Richmond as slight favourites. Geelong kick 20 goals to 2 in the first half, end up winning by 26 goals (157 points to be exact) and then win the next 13 straight. Because of how good Geelong ended up being in 2007, people forget how disappointing they had been until this game, and how improbable the rest of the season would have seemed at the time. I can vividly remember being genuinely shocked at how awesome Geelong were in that game, and it came out of nowhere.

The round 6 2007 game is one that came to my mind as well. Geelong started the season inconsistently and was 2 and 3 after losing to North at KP. I can remember toying with the idea of picking Richmond in my footy tipping but decided against it luckily. The huge winning margin was a huge shock.

The other "where did that come from" game I recall also featured Geelong and Richmond, but the result was reversed.

The first finals match I ever went to was the 1969 First Semi Final. Geelong had finished 3rd with 13 1/2 wins while Richmond were 4th with 13 wins. Being my first final, I was expecting a hard fought, close game between two top sides. It transpired that Richmond kicked 14 goals to 2 in the first half to lead by 75 points and went on to win by 118 points (the first final with a 100+ point margin). Richmond were in great form and went on to win the premiership against Carlton a few weeks later, but such a one-sided finals match first up was a big surprise.

 

[eaglespremiers]

The one that comes to mind most was round 8 2006 - Richmond v Adelaide.
The Tigers had won 3 games for the year (all against bottom four teams - Brisbane, Essendon, Carlton).
The week before they had been belted to the tune of 118 points by (at that point of the season) a middle-of-the-road Sydney.
Adelaide had lost one game for the year (Round 2 against eventual premiers West Coast) and round 8 would be their only loss until they faced the Eagles again in round 17.
Richmond came into this game with a particular game style in mind - keep the ball away from the Adelaide players.
Ordinarily an average team will succeed against a great team for only short periods of time in a match and then ultimately be overrun.
However, on this particular day the Tigers strategy worked for four quarters.
The Bowden brothers had 41 uncontested possessions between them in what was a very unwatchable, yet intriguing match.

 

[pazza]

For some real old timers here.

Essendon versus North Melbourne 16th July 1977.

North were a powerhouse under Barassi in this period. Essendon were a struggling team going through a massive rebuilding phase (known as Baby Bombers Mark I).

No-one was predicting this result though.

Essendon 17.14.116
North 11.11.77

Barassi would later praise Essendon mentioning the club had a bright future.

That Essendon side would have the following great names:

Ken Fletcher
Garry Foulds
Simon Madden
Paul Van Der Haar
Tim Watson (his 16th birthday was 3 days prior to the match)

 

[hawkman]

I don't think I've seen anyone mention West Coast vs Adelaide round 17 2006 yet. Not all that surprising that West Coast won but it was a shock they won by 82 against a previously dominant Adelaide team. Also it was a complete change of game style by West Coast to what we had seen all season

 

[Royce Hafey]

The one that comes to mind most was round 8 2006 - Richmond v Adelaide.
The Tigers had won 3 games for the year (all against bottom four teams - Brisbane, Essendon, Carlton).
The week before they had been belted to the tune of 118 points by (at that point of the season) a middle-of-the-road Sydney.
Adelaide had lost one game for the year (Round 2 against eventual premiers West Coast) and round 8 would be their only loss until they faced the Eagles again in round 17.
Richmond came into this game with a particular game style in mind - keep the ball away from the Adelaide players.
Ordinarily an average team will succeed against a great team for only short periods of time in a match and then ultimately be overrun.
However, on this particular day the Tigers strategy worked for four quarters.
The Bowden brothers had 41 uncontested possessions between them in what was a very unwatchable, yet intriguing match.

I don't think we came into the match with that style in mind. We played unusually well in the opening quarter and opened up a surprising but modest lead playing conventional footy. Adelaide responded with the, then fashionable, version of momentum footy, a super flood every time we got the ball. They were expecting us to bomb it into a crowded forward line, turn it over and for them to sling-shot from the inevitable turnover. The genius of the Richmond response (executed to perfection by the Bowden brothers) was to realise that, as we had the lead, if they were going to flood our forward line, we could spend most of the rest of the match kicking the ball around about our defensive half. Patrick and Joel Bowden played kick to kick for much of the match and Joel still has the record for most marks in a match. All they had to do was go to a plan B and man up, but for some reason it never occurred to Neil Craig to do so.

 

[Zarrix]

Adelaide away 2013- The perfect swans performance, would have been premiership favs at that point. 90 point annihilation against an ooponent that had given us issues in the past. Unfortunately we limply lost to port two weeks later and staggered to prelim where freo put up their own GOAT performance.

Saints prelim last quarter in 05- Looked like saints were going to win out in the end with a week extra off and us coming off THAT semi... Well

Hawks away 2015- sandwiched between two horror shows against the hawks was this gem.

Others- Geelong away 2011, Saints SCG 04, Port qual final 03. Also those close losses against an all conquering essendon in 2000 and 2001.

 

[Zarrix]

I don't think we came into the match with that style in mind. We played unusually well in the opening quarter and opened up a surprising but modest lead playing conventional footy. Adelaide responded with the, then fashionable, version of momentum footy, a super flood every time we got the ball. They were expecting us to bomb it into a crowded forward line, turn it over and for them to sling-shot from the inevitable turnover. The genius of the Richmond response (executed to perfection by the Bowden brothers) was to realise that, as we had the lead, if they were going to flood our forward line, we could spend most of the rest of the match kicking the ball around about our defensive half. Patrick and Joel Bowden played kick to kick for much of the match and Joel still has the record for most marks in a match. All they had to do was go to a plan B and man up, but for some reason it never occurred to Neil Craig to do so.

For all the criticism wallace gets, he was responsible for two of the greatest strategic masterstrokes of the modern game, this and wb ess 2000.

 

[CollarJazzKnee]

For all the criticism wallace gets, he was responsible for two of the greatest strategic masterstrokes of the modern game, this and wb ess 2000.

..as well as losing a prelim in which his team was up by 4 goals with half a quarter to go (then later walking out on the club) as well as pushing Richmond back 5 years through terrible decisions.

 

[Xtreme]

Kurt Tippet, Lewis Jetta, Ted Richards.... well every Swan bar Buddy in the 2014 Grand Final!

No idea why so many of them went missing in the greatest grand final in AFL history.

 

[Van_Dyke]

I'm pretty sure this was the game where we started pretty well, then Tim Lane thought it would be appropriate to say "the days of domination are over."
It's like he went down onto the field and told that to every Geelong player. So we can thank Tim for that terrible loss.

Yeah that was the game where Lane said their era was over.

 

[Zarrix]

..as well as losing a prelim in which his team was up by 4 goals with half a quarter to go (then later walking out on the club) as well as pushing Richmond back 5 years through terrible decisions.

Yep, of course his stuff ups outweigh his masterplans. Even a broken clock...

 

[Scotland]

I don't think I've seen anyone mention West Coast vs Adelaide round 17 2006 yet. Not all that surprising that West Coast won but it was a shock they won by 82 against a previously dominant Adelaide team. Also it was a complete change of game style by West Coast to what we had seen all season

Was going to be my suggestion too. All we heard about to that point was the unbeatable "Crowbots" and coming off a loss to Collingwood we absolutely dismantled them.

The ladder before the game:

Adelaide 56 172%
West Coast 48 110%
Melbourne 44 113%
Collingwood 40 116%
St Kilda 40 115%
Bulldogs 40 113%
Sydney 36 119%
Freo 36 94%

A pretty even top 8 apart from the Crows sitting two games and 62% clear on top.

The ladder after 22 games:

West Coast 68 120%
Adelaide 64 142%
Freo, Sydney etc.

I know a few Adelaide fans think they should've won a flag in 2005/6 but we played them 6 times and the record was 5-1 in our favour with the only win being Rd 22 2005 which was a 'who would you prefer to play in the QF?' game as both teams were safe in the top 2. Beat them 3 times at Football Park and in two consecutive PFs.

 

[CJApples87]

For me it's the Round 9 clash in 2011 between West Coast and Western Bulldogs. We had played competitive football for all of our games but had lost a few. We'd come off a great Derby win the week before and confidence was high. The Bulldogs were coming off a big win against Richmond the week before but had been inconsistent and it seemed their great era was coming to an end.

The first half was a good contest, but you could just sense the Eagles were on top not only on the scoreboard, but in general play as well. We went to the main break five goals up but it probably could have been more. We expected the Bulldogs to come out firing in the second half.

What happened next is still one of my favourite halves of football watching the Eagles ever. Kennedy kicked 10 for the game, Shuey kicked (and should've had more) and Embley brought his own footy. The last quarter was 10.4.64 to 0.0.0. I was basically laughing the whole way through the last quarter in amazement at this team that had been so poor the year before was now belting last year's preliminary finalists by over 100 points. 175-52 in the end.

 

[Scotland]

Does our 2015 season count?

I thought we'd struggle to make the 8, then Mackenzie went down in pre-season. Then Brown went down 10 minutes into Rd 1 and I thought we'd be completely stuffed.

Lo and behold we made the GF beating all 17 other teams in the process. Who saw that coming?

 

[Schauermann]

We sadly don't have a huge history unexpectingly smashing sides. Perhaps beatin a middle range Hawthorn in 2001, after 17 losses every win looks huge. Perhaps Collingwood in rd7 2005, pretty huge score at least even when they weren't the best team that year.

 

[eaglespremiers]

Does our 2015 season count?

I thought we'd struggle to make the 8, then Mackenzie went down in pre-season. Then Brown went down 10 minutes into Rd 1 and I thought we'd be completely stuffed.

Lo and behold we made the GF beating all 17 other teams in the process. Who saw that coming?

You weren't the only one
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/positives-for-the-rest-of-the-2015-season.1092627/

 

[Royce Hafey]

For all the criticism wallace gets, he was responsible for two of the greatest strategic masterstrokes of the modern game, this and wb ess 2000.

Tactical masterstrokes not strategic. They were both one offs (or at least the Richmond one was). A strategic masterstroke would be developing a game plan that could be used over a long period. Wallace was a great game day coach, but he was not the coach to develop a team or players. He was pretty much the opposite of Hardwick down to his one great strength being arguably Dimma's weakest point - game day coaching.

 

[pazza]

Another one from the dark ages.

Round 8 1981. VFL Park. Collingwood v Essendon.

Coming into the match with a 2-5 record, compared to Collingwood's undefeated start, Essendon's chances would have seemed slim, given their previous win was against lowly St. Kilda the previous week.

But, in front of a then record 79326, Essendon belted the Pies 21.18.144 to a very accurate 14.3.87. The win would be the 2nd of Essendon's 15 straight for the season. It was the win that showed that the young Bombers were going to be a contender.

 

[DangerSloane]

Melbourne beating Geelong at KP this year in Enrights 300th.
That was a pretty big shock.