Best vs worst fixtures in terms of the standard of footy produced

Jun 7, 2007
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huh? Revisionist crap.

Freo got to within 3 points in the 3rd quarter.. twice. The final margin was only 15 points.
Freo had all the momentum in the 3rd and absolutely looked like a decent chance to win it. Gunston's goal just before 3/4 time gave us breathing space. Freo never looked likely in the last quarter by the time they started coming back it was nearly too late
 
Sep 22, 2011
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Richmond v Carlton. Surely. Given the AFL trying to hype this game for the last decade in the opening round, it’s an absolute one sided joke
 
Three of best games I've ever seen were North V Essendon in 1993, 1998 & 2001 (and we lost two of those), but recently with the exception of the 2014 Elimination Final they have all been rather dull. Hopefully as the teams improve in the coming years we can get somewhere near that level again, although I would prefer we win the memorable ones. :)
 
Jun 14, 2015
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Dees v Collingwood sucks. I can't even remember the last time Melbourne bothered showing up. I think there's some handshake agreement maybe where we get the gate money and thank the big nice Collingwood for giving us a marquee game on a public holiday, and in return we treat it like a training drill and collingwood look nice for a day.

Hope you enjoyed your send off buckley!
 

basashi

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Jun 18, 2010
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Not every year and not every game...

But over a 20 year stretch the Showdowns are more likely than any other fixture to produce a good game with high quality play, passion, crowd enthusiasm and a good dash of niggle.

Its the by far the most consistent good fixture for neutrals.
 
Jun 7, 2007
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As for all the suggestions of Collingwood/Geelong, I would suggest Hawthorn/Collingwood have been far, far worse for a long time now. Only redeeming note for that is the 2011 Prelim but if we’re extending that far into the past it’s worth noting that the 2007 prelim was a far superior game.
2015 (night of Phil Walsh's death) and 2016 were cracking games.
 
Feb 5, 2018
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Not every year and not every game...

But over a 20 year stretch the Showdowns are more likely than any other fixture to produce a good game with high quality play, passion, crowd enthusiasm and a good dash of niggle.

Its the by far the most consistent good fixture for neutrals.

Dogs vs Giants for me too. Even when it's a bit one-sided there is a talking point that arises.
 
Jun 7, 2007
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Actually I stand corrected on that, 2015 was a great one, as you said.

2016 was the Jack Fitzpatrick game? Close result but wasn’t really a great game
May have been more exciting for us as we had a top 4 result riding on it

It has been one sided our way for most of the last 10 years though
 
Oct 16, 2003
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2015 (night of Phil Walsh's death) and 2016 were cracking games.

Yeah, and from memory, there were a couple of other fixtures that had points of interest.

I remember 2017 being the game that Hawthorn burst out of the blocks, kicked 6 goals to quarter time (Collingwood scoreless) and commentators were discussing whether it would result in Buckley's sacking. Collingwood surged back in a reasonably high scoring affair and won the game late, despite Tom Mitchell having 50 touches for the first time in his career.

In 2019, Collingwood were playing for top 4 and Hawthorn were trying to get into the 8. After trailing the entire match, Hawthorn kicked 5 goals in the last quarter to steal the game by under a goal. The intensity late in the game was pretty high with a bit riding on it for both sides (as it turns out, despite Hawthorn winning this one, Collingwood finished the season off strongly and hung on to 4th and Hawthorn's late season surge still left them 9th).

That's at least 5 decent fixtures in the last 10 years (with 2011 PF, 2015 and 2016) which, together with some shockers, is probably about par.
 
Yeah, and from memory, there were a couple of other fixtures that had points of interest.

I remember 2017 being the game that Hawthorn burst out of the blocks, kicked 6 goals to quarter time (Collingwood scoreless) and commentators were discussing whether it would result in Buckley's sacking. Collingwood surged back in a reasonably high scoring affair and won the game late, despite Tom Mitchell having 50 touches for the first time in his career.

In 2019, Collingwood were playing for top 4 and Hawthorn were trying to get into the 8. After trailing the entire match, Hawthorn kicked 5 goals in the last quarter to steal the game by under a goal. The intensity late in the game was pretty high with a bit riding on it for both sides (as it turns out, despite Hawthorn winning, Collingwood finished the year hanging on to 4th and Hawthorn's late surge still left them 9th).

That's at least 5 decent fixtures in the last 10 years (with 2011 PF, 2015 and 2016) which, together with some shockers, is probably about par.
2019 was a terrible game of football. I was at 2017 and the standard at that one was rubbish as well.

A close game isn’t a good game necessarily. The Geelong v Collingwood matchup has observed eight games decided by under twelve points since 2011. It is still rightly and roundly being criticised, although having sat through both the Cats games have generally been far better than the Hawks matchups to watch.
 
Jun 7, 2007
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Yeah, and from memory, there were a couple of other fixtures that had points of interest.

I remember 2017 being the game that Hawthorn burst out of the blocks, kicked 6 goals to quarter time (Collingwood scoreless) and commentators were discussing whether it would result in Buckley's sacking. Collingwood surged back in a reasonably high scoring affair and won the game late, despite Tom Mitchell having 50 touches for the first time in his career.

In 2019, Collingwood were playing for top 4 and Hawthorn were trying to get into the 8. After trailing the entire match, Hawthorn kicked 5 goals in the last quarter to steal the game by under a goal. The intensity late in the game was pretty high with a bit riding on it for both sides (as it turns out, despite Hawthorn winning, Collingwood finished the year hanging on to 4th and Hawthorn's late surge still left them 9th).

That's at least 5 decent fixtures in the last 10 years (with 2011 PF, 2015 and 2016) which, together with some shockers, is probably about par.
2019 was lucky it was close. It was an ordinary match otherwise as we only had 4 goals to 3/4 time
 
Oct 16, 2003
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2019 was a terrible game of football. I was at 2017 and the standard at that one was rubbish as well.

Yes, probably. I remember the 2017 fixture starting poorly due to Collingwood's unwillingness to take risks but the game opened up and was more entertaining once Buckley made the shift in game that was instrumental to not only the comeback but changing the fortunes for Collingwood to avoid him getting the sack. Prior to that point, Collingwood were 17th nearly half through the season and being thrashed by a lowly Hawthorn (with, as you say, very conservative, error prone play that looked really bad). The shift saw them win 3 games in a row, bounce out of the bottom 5 and ultimately save for Buckley's job before his premiership assault in 2018.

Perhaps not the highest quality football but enough points of interest (close, comeback, Mitchell 50 touches) and at least a more attacking shift to make it interesting to watch (to me, at least).
 
Oct 29, 2017
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The north vs stk game around easter most years has robbed my life of precious time on this earth.

I wont make the same mistake again. Would rather clean my gutters out.
 

CarnTheScray

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Jun 4, 2019
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The north vs stk game around easter most years has robbed my life of precious time on this earth.

I wont make the same mistake again. Would rather clean my gutters out.
That match up was on Good Friday in 2018, they kicked us out for St Kilda and the result was one of the worst games I’ve ever watched.
 
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