Round 1 Memories

[Blackhawk42]

Surprisingly it was 2 years ago when we lost to Geelong in round 1. First game of footy I saw live with my now fiance. We struggled in the first half (and the umpires didn't help). The came the third quarter and we piled on the goals and eventually hit the front. Never heard the MCG so loud. Hodge was incredible in multiple instances. Game was notorious for being Dangers first in the Cats colours. Had 40 odd disposals and kicked a few goals. Also took that mark over Stratton in the goal square. The subsequent miss from 10 metres out was absolutely hilarious. Some Cats supporter nearby completely spat it and screamed out 'go back to Adelaide'.

 

[Marmozet]

Our opener against Freo in 2015 was an absolute epic.

I remember feeling exhausted just watching it and breathing heavily. Unfortunately one team had to lose such a great game and it was us.

 

[RUNVS]

This was the game. St Kilda won by 2.

That is the one, and I don't know what sociopath uploaded the entire match onto youtube.

 

[SC26]

That is the one, and I don't know what sociopath uploaded the entire match onto youtube.

That sociopath was me
Someone asked me to upload it.

 

[RUNVS]

That sociopath was me
Someone asked me to be upload it.

You monster

 

[raskolnikov]

1994.

Classic between the Bombers, last year's premiers, and West Coast, who went on to win the flag that year.

 

[demondavey]

Whenever we win round one we are in the 8 for the first time since 2006. That’s my highlight.

 

[Captain_Bender]

Whenever we win round one we are in the 8 for the first time since 2006. That’s my highlight.

Actually can still be 9th despite winning

 

[demondavey]

Actually can still be 9th despite winning

Oh yeah, I forgot about that now

 

[Joao]

Our opener against Freo in 2015 was an absolute epic.

I remember feeling exhausted just watching it and breathing heavily. Unfortunately one team had to lose such a great game and it was us.

Ooh that was a good game. Good call.

Especially since I thought you guys were going to be the team to beat that year.

 

[Andre]

First game of footy I saw live with my now fiance. We struggled in the first half (and the umpires didn't help)'.

Well you must have improved, since she’s now your fiancé. Dare we ask what you got infringed for? Or is it NSFW?

 

[LightTower4]

1983 junction oval Hawthorn v Fitzroy, more interested in collecting aluminium cans me and my mate filled 3 big bags of crushed cans those were the days when some beer cans were uncrushable i dont know what they were made of but geez they hurt when you stomped on them. Then his dad drove us home.

Steel.
Much better for standing on as a kid looking over bigger bodies.

 

[Bollox]

Yeah nahh, nothing will ever beat the very first game of the 2005 season. Was sitting in a city pub watching 2nd v 3rdor4th?? from 2004 and by 3/4 time the place had erupted. Possibly the most memorable qtr of footy not involving Syd that i can remember. Its why i reckon Rnd 1 Game 1 should always be between a cpl of top 4 mobs...so much at stake, retribution etc.
After an incredible 2004 season from a young Riewoldt he was installed their youngest ever captn, runaway brownlow favorite, media darling, and playing triple flag winners with his mates and family in the crowd at Gabba. Almost singlehandedly took them from 4g down at halftime to 1 up mid way thru 3rd, when Jamie Charman "perhaps" got the word to run right thru and break him. The whole Michael/Scott bumping his shoulder, and Hamill knocked out one of the Scott bros teeth and spotfires everywhere...meanwhile end to end footy going on. Not a single Saints/Lions fan in the pub but it was going off. Then a meltdown on figbooty for a week as everyone moralised over the injury.

The AFL couldnt have scripted a better game. Probably the last of the truly tough AFL games that could have easily got way out of hand.

 

[citizen-erased]

2000: Ess d Port
Remember it for one distinct reason. After the game, i knew we'd win the flag that year.
99 still burned. and you could see the team was responding
First game at Docklands too.

2009: Port d Essendon
Wouldn't think a loss would stand out, but a young Michael Hurley debuts @ CHB on Warren Tredrea and puts in an impressive effort to keep him goalless. 14 disposals, 5 marks, and that draft pick has more than paid off.

2011: Ess d Dogs
Vivid memories of this game. After a year and a bit of defensively poor performances and being physically smashed off the park, a pre-Dank bombers outfit plays a strong game of football.
More noticeably, the skill level by foot from Stanton and Watson were on another level.
A future captain in Dyson Heppell debuts and another draft pick looks to have paid off handsomely.

2002: Ess d Cats
I remember this one after leaning over to my mate and stating "Ablett taking full advantage of his surname to get to the AFL"
This one comes up at the pub every so often.

2017: Ess d Hawks
It was nice having a full team back. Heppell played his best game and looked back to his best (sadly didn't sustain it, but onwards to this year) with a ton of possessions, tackles and goals.
Roughie back on the park was the true comeback story.
It was nice to put the previous 4 years behind us.

 

[Macpotata]

Round 1 isn't too far away now which is pretty exciting, shaping up to be a highly intriguing season.

Personally Round 1 is always my favourite round of the season, there's always big crowds, a few unpredictable results, the chance to see new recruits or coaches for the first time and of course knowing that whatever happens there's still 21 games to go!

Essendon typically are fast starters so Round 1 generally has thrown up a few good results, such as a few recent ones

2012: Essendon d North Melbourne
The bombers threatened to kick away in the last, but North finished stronger and threatened to pinch it. Hamish McIntosh had a relatively simple shot after the siren and much to our delight, pushed it wide. We held on by just 2 points.

2014: Essendon d North Melbourne
It's always nice to kick off the season with a win over the Roo's. We won by 39 points in a solid display with Chapman and Goddard starring, Daniher also took a few great marks. 2014 was definitely the best season for us in those dark periods. We went on to meet North in the elimination final but I just can't seem to remember what happened after half time...

2017: Essendon d Hawthorn
Last year's first round game was pretty special. Was so good as a supporter to see our whole team back on the park and some sense of normality restored. Of course it was fantastic to see Roughy back for the Hawks too. We were down by a few goals in the third and dug deep to walk away with a solid 25 point victory.

Of course, there's been a few bad memories too

2015: Sydney d Essendon
We had no pre season and clearly no petrol left in the tank as we surrendered a 7 goal lead against the Swans. Was a flat start to a pretty dismal season.

2010: Geelong d Essendon
Still haven't forgiven Neagle for playing on.

2011: Essendon d Western Bulldogs
Sure we crushed the dogs by 55 points and finished the round in first position but alas its a bad memory now. It was Hird's first game as coach and every Essendon supporter would have left that day excited for our future, unfortunately the club took a different route and the rest is history.

A few non Essendon Round one memories also stick out such as Geelong v St Kilda in 2011 where Bartel kicked an impossible goal to win it for the Cats 48-47 and Richmond d Carlton in 2013 where the Blues mounted a huge comeback but just fell short.

What are some of your fondest Round 1 memories, good or bad?

Good post and some great games in there.

Milburn actually got the winning goal for us in 2011 not Bartel.

 

[Wallaby]

Rd 1 2000 - Richmond v Melbourne. Richmond get out to a big lead, classic comeback by Melbourne, Tigers just hang on. OK. Good game.

But......

The umpiring for both sides was so putrid, so bad, so completely confusing, that supporters of both sides were about to riot in the last quarter. There must have been some direction to the umpires in the off-season to change some interpretations - but it made the result of the game basically worthless. Neither players or spectators had a clue what was going on. Every decision was Chooklotto.

At the end, the Richmond supporters just shrugged their shoulders and said 'Whatever - we get the four points', while the Melbourne fans were going ballistic - rightly. If Richmond had lost, the Tiger fans would have blown up - for exactly the same reasons.

 

[footyfan1978]

What are some of your fondest Round 1 memories, good or bad?

Hard to forget round 1 , 1981.
Aberration for us the year before with premiership-captain-coach shock resignation so our 1980 year kind of a write off with club not right still recovering from shock. Richmond won flag in 1980 with our gap year whilst that s**t went on.
So come round 1 we happened to be playing them out at Waverley.

Who can forget this was the amazing year Peter Bosustow and Ken Hunter recruited from West Australia making their debut round one. Famous Richmond commentator Jack Dyer infamously labelled Bosustow just a good ordinary player. Ended up winning mark and goal of year that year and was part of us destroying Richmond round 1 , 1981 and letting them awake to 1980 was just an aberration.



Just as an aside, two years earlier our first game of season was our round 3 clash. Try to work that one out....lol

 

[Lsta062]

I don't think I have any overly good memories for Richmond in Round 1. I do have bad memories in Round 1 though.

2006 vs Bulldogs. Horrible start to the season, going down 167-52 (115 points).
2009 vs Carlton. Again, a horrible start to the season that kinda set the precedent for the next two years. We lost 150-67 (83 points).
2010 vs Carlton wasn't a particularly fond memory either since the comfortable loss came after going through a bad season the year before. We lost by 56 points, which started a disastrous run that saw us lose the next 6 rounds by an average of about 63 points.

The fondest memory regarding Richmond in Round 1 was honestly our 43 point win over Carlton in 2017, which wasn't even that great since we conceded 89 points after they came back in the 3rd quarter. Oh, maybe the 5 point win over Carlton in 2013 was pretty good since we finally broke our Round 1/Carlton losing streak then. We did let them in the game though only to scrape by 5 points in the end, but it was still an alright win.

 

[Bollox]

After all the close games, after a flag each out of Win Loss Win Loss Win Loss Win Loss..they produced this Rnd 1 game 2007.
By now Barassi was trying to get an inquiry into the death of Vic footy, citing how many thought "interstate" clubs would win all flags from then on. Just a minor panic moment

Big crowd at the Olympic stadium Sydney. All the talk was about Backdoor Benny doing a preseason on amphetamines and everything else...then assuming he'd be allowed to get on a plane to Sydney for Rnd 1. Back page news all thru 2007 and i think he was delisted that season for a year ???.

This game remembered for the Judd on Hall "coathanger" as it was labelled, but mainly for Kerr's brilliant effort to get to McVeigh, who had tunnel vision calmly sizing up fwd options to win the game with just seconds left. Loudest that crappy stadium has ever been.

 

[00Stinger]

round 1 2017 v St Kilda

St Kilda went in favourites. Melbourne hadn't beaten St Kilda for 10 years and had hardly won a game at Etihad for the same time frame. According to most of the St Kilda supporters it was going to be an easy win for the Saints.

Instead Melbourne handed St Kilda it's ass on a plate.

 

[captain cotch 9]

Dustys 70m torp last year was pretty special
Good start to an amazing year

 

[NUFC Tiger]

2006 vs Richmond - dogs win by 115 pt on Friday night footy.

Strangely have no recollection of that...must have wiped it completely from my memory (for good reason).


Round 1 has been fairly tame the last few years but the moment that stands out to me in recent memory is the below. Carlton surging late in the game. I was standing up with everyone else on the wing screaming madly, no one knew how long the game had left. I think there was a rare Richmond break that sent the ball into our 50 which Bootsma mopped up and then tried to rebound to set up another Carlton attack and then McGuane caught him in a desperate tackle. Probably his finest moment in yellow and black haha. Didn't even hear the siren over the cacophony of noise and only realised the game was done when the players started celebrating. Cracking game.

 

[gavaniacono]

North are notoriously crappy season starters, even when we have had good sides.

The old timers tell me that being the reigning wooden spooners of 1970 and rolling the reigning premiers (Carlton) in round 1 of 1971 at Arden Street was pretty special.

Sam Kekovich's 28 disposals, 7 marks and 4.2 from CHF was a fair effort.

Kekka may have been best player in the country around that time.

Hear he didnt like team photos much though.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Kekka may have been best player in the country around that time.

Hear he didnt like team photos much though.

A natural born superstar that preferred boozing, women and race tracks to football.

 

[Giant Strides]

Obviously GWS fans have a very small pool of games to choose from, but round 1 2014 against Sydney Swans was pretty memorable in more ways than one. Just starting their third year in the competition, and with just three wins in that time, there was no expectation of GWS beating the premiership fancies, but everyone was keen to see footy live again. Lining up for their first games for respective clubs were Buddy Franklin (having snubbed GWS' contract offer) and Shane Mumford (having been forced out of the Swans by Buddy's arrival) - so just a touch of tension. The massive electrical storm at quarter time that blew some of the static wicks off the stadium roof and delayed the second quarter was certainly memorable - as was the unexpected result of GWS defeating Sydney for the first time (15.9.99 to 9.13.67). https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/sydney-swans-rocked-by-gws-giants-20140315-hvj75.html