Round 2, 1998. Twilight game in Round 2. They were 41 up at half time and ended up winning by 25. Doesn't sound that bad, but they were last in 1997 and it wasn't known early in the year that they'd actually improved as much as they did.
They 1986 loss was a disaster. We had to win our last 6 to make the finals. We won four straight including sides battling for our spot, Footscray and Fitzroy, the previous two weeks so it came down to a regulation win against 11th placed Melbourne and then a tough one against Essendon at Windy Hill in the last week. Melbourne beat us by 85 points with David Williams kicking 9. We beat Essendon the next week but it didn't matter. We missed the finals by percentage.
The game we won in 1998 was in Round 17 by 55 points. The game was in the balance at 3/4 time but we kicked 10 goals to 2 in the last quarter. Carey kicked 8. Melbourne then won 7 games straight until losing to us in the Preliminary Final.
One of my favourite Melbourne wins was in 2000. We were outscored by 18 points in the 1st quarter, 19 in the 3rd and 20 in the last - but 11 goals to 2 in the second quarter won us the game by a point. Thoroughly outplayed for three quarters but won the game...amazing.
Another 1 point win was in 1999. Melbourne had fallen away a bit in 1999 but they took it right up to us in Round 12 - leading by 19 points early in the last quarter. We kicked the last 2 goals of the game to get the margin back to six points 10mins into the last quarter. From there we kicked 8 consecutive points to hit the front late in the game. Melbourne kicked the last point but lost despite kicking two more goals during the match (14.8-92 to 12.21-93).
Keeping on the 1 point theme was the first of the 14 straight wins. Again, we were expected to win well and looked to be on track early in the last with 5 goals to Shannon Grant and a 35 point lead. The Dees then kicked the next 7 goals in the next 20mins to get a 6pt lead. But a poor kick out by Travis Johnstone ended up with a young Andrew Swallow who just made the distance from 50 to snatch the game. Again, we won with less goals (11.12-78 to 10.19-79)
Now I wonder why that 1986 game hurt so much 30 years ago and that explains why.
I also remember going with my mate. It was one of the few games that we both got to go to together. We planned it out for weeks before. Get the train down from the bush...do this that and the other in the City and then go to watch us smash s**t Melbourne.
85 point loss.
The pain never goes away.