Essendon vs Weagles - Semi-Final 1996

[Smyth94]

As I can't watch any live footy (living overseas) I subscribed to BomberTV (best $20 spent) a few weeks ago, last night while being bored came across some of the best of James Hird videos and decided to watch the 1996 Semi against the Weagles. I actually went to this game but most of it was a blur as I was only 10 years old at the time and can only remember Jim playing a blinder and 85,000+ people waving their scarves at the end of the match. A few points about watching this match -

1. Holy $hit the crowd was insane, the noise level was incredibly high
2. Bruce mentioned a few times that most of Victoria had shown up to see the Weagles get beaten - Is he stupid? 99.98% of that crowd were Bomber fans
3. Dean Wallis had hair
4. You could just see that Lloyd had 'champion' written all over him even at 18 (same could be said for Cousins)
5. Umpires - In the first half alone I reckon there were about a dozen non-decisions that would've been called 9/10 this year. It's a real shame to see technicalities ruin a good game of football.

Finally - Hirdy. It's scary how good he was in 1996 and it makes me sick that his prime was cut down by injuries. Before his injuries he had a fantastic leap and pack mark for a bloke that's only 6'2'' at most he made Gehrig (6'5'') look like a school-boy.

I guess there was no point to this thread except for the fact that I am one footy starved Bomber fan

 

[Shane Hird]

The best part of that game was Hird being placed at full back in the dying minutes to have a rest on Sumich.

A few minutes later,Hird runs the length of the MCG ....with Suma huffing and puffing and chasing Hird in a pathetic effort....taking handpasses along the way,keeps running and ends up slotting through a nice goal still on the run to bury the Weagles into the ground even more....