Carlton is devastated and Western Bulldogs are into the final eight after the last game of AFL season 2022. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

This Sunday, the Western Bulldogs might be relying on Carlton to ensure they make it into the finals. If the Dogs succumb to GWS in Ballarat, they’ll be hoping the Blues lower their colours to St Kilda or Port Adelaide beats Fremantle to ensure they taste September action.

Should that scenario play out, it will be the third year running the Bulldogs will be hoping Carlton does the right thing by them in the season’s final round. In 2022, the right thing was for Carlton to lose to Collingwood. The Blues duly obliged, in the most dramatic of fashions, and the Dogs sneaked into the top eight.

In 2023 the right thing for Carlton to do was beat GWS, and when the Blues jumped to an early 14-point lead, it looked like the Dogs might once more make it to September. Sadly, though, Carlton stopped to a walk, and the Giants won with ease.

A similar scenario to 2022 on Sunday will mark another chapter of many in a remarkable line of last-round “tales with a twist” involving the Bulldogs and Blues. And while those tales number many, the two clubs have never locked horns in a final – not a single time over 100 seasons of being in the same competition.

Looking a raw premiership numbers, this might not seem surprising. Carlton has 16 flags; the Dogs just two. But the club formerly known as Footscray has made the finals many times across those 100 years, more than most in recent decades.

So the fact that they’ve never crossed swords in a final is quite remarkable. The two clubs have been dancing around each other without ever quite embracing since 1938. That was the year Footscray first made it to the finals. The Blues did too that year, but the Dogs were eliminated in week one by Collingwood. Carlton then went on to meet – and beat – the Magpies in the Grand Final.

In the 40 years from 1938 to 1977, Carlton made the finals 18 times and Footscray 12. Yet it was not until the 39th of those years – 1976 – that they shared the September stage.
The most remarkable part of this era of avoiding each other was the period from 1941 to 1949. Across those nine years Carlton played finals five times and Footscray four. The fact the two were never finalists in the same year in that period is notable enough, but the sequence itself takes it to a whole new level of bizarre. Here’s who made it to September in each of those years:
1941 Carlton, 1942 Footscray
1943 Carlton, 1944 Footscray
1945 Carlton, 1946 Footscray
1947 Carlton, 1948 Footscray
1949 Carlton

Over almost an entire decade, the Blues and Dogs engaged in a weird kind of promotion/relegation system that involved them, and them alone.

For the next 27 years, the two clubs made the finals on a semi-regular basis without ever doing so together. The Bulldogs made finals in 1951, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1961 and 1974. In those years, the Blues did not. Carlton played finals in 1952, 1957, 1959, 1962, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1975. Footscray did not.

The two finally had a September reunion of sorts in 1976, but their paths did not directly cross. Since then, the pair have featured in the finals together seven times – in 1985, 1994-95, 1999-2000 and 2009-10.

The two most recent of those years had the pair come tantalisingly close to finally facing in off in a final. Carlton led Brisbane until late into the final quarter of their 2009 elimination final, and were ahead of Sydney until just before time-on in the 2010 elimination final.

Somehow, though, the Blues managed to lose both of those matches. Had they won either, the Bulldogs were awaiting them the following week. Incredibly, the “Bulldogs-Blues Finals Fable” contains a host of other chapters, involving the two teams helping or hindering each other’s efforts to play finals. Below is a short summary of each of those September-seeking scenarios.

As a Doggies’ fan who’ll be heading to Ballarat on Sunday, I’m hoping we won’t be relying on the Blues to do the right thing (lose to St Kilda) to make finals. But history suggests those hopes will not be fulfilled and I’ll be left biting my nails as I drive home from Ballarat!

1942 (TOP 4)
Footscray and Carlton went into the final round level on 11 wins, with Dogs in fourth place, ahead of the fifth-placed Blues by percentage. The Blues had a big win over Richmond by 53 points, but the Bulldogs got the job done against Fitzroy to hold on to fourth place and make VFL finals for the second time.
Carlton 18.19.127 d Richmond 10.14.74
Footscray 19.15.129 d Fitzroy 14.8.92
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
4th: Footscray 40 points 125.97%
5th: Carlton 40 points 120.23%

1944 (TOP 4)
Going into the last round of 1944, Carlton were in third place on the ladder with 12 wins, Essendon were fourth, also with 12 wins and Footscray were fifth, half a game behind the Blues and Dons.
Essendon had a win over South Melbourne, leaving the fourth and final place in the finals to the winner of the Footscray vs Carlton match at Princes Park. In a thrilling finish, the Bulldogs – thanks in a big way to Norm Ware, who kicked six goals – hung on to beat Carlton by just one point, to steal a place in the finals from the Blues.
Essendon 17.24.126 d South Melbourne 6.8.44
Footscray 12.17.89 d Carlton 13.10.88
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
3rd: Essendon 52 points
4th: Footscray 50 points
5th: Carlton 48 points

1945 (TOP 4)
For the third time in four years, the final round began with Footscray and Carlton fighting for a spot in the finals. The Dogs sat third, North Melbourne fourth, and the Blues fifth. All had 12 wins, but Footscray’s percentage was superior’s to North’s, which as in turn better than Carlton’s.
As they had a year earlier, the Dogs and Blues met in the final round, this time at Western Oval. There was no home ground advantage, though, and Carlton trounced the Bulldogs by 53 points. Meanwhile, North Melbourne narrowly defeated Essendon to claim the final spot in the four. However even if the Shinboners had lost, the magnitude of the Dogs’ defeat would have seen them miss the finals in any case.
Carlton 16.19.115 d Carlton 8.14.62
North Melbourne 14.17.101 d Essendon 13.17.95
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
3rd: Carlton 52 points
4th: North Melbourne 52 points
5th: Footscray 48 points

1956 (TOP 4)
Eleven years later, the Blues and Dogs met again in the final round, once more at Carlton’s home ground at Princes Park. Carlton, fourth, went into the last round half a game clear of Footscray, fifth.
In front of a bumper crowd of nearly 45,000, the Dogs led a close match for most of the afternoon, winning by 17 points, with Jack Collins’ three goals perhaps the difference. As a result of the win, the Bulldogs replaced Carlton in fourth spot and claimed a place in the finals.
Footscray 8.14.62 d Carlton 6.9.45
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
4th: Footscray 44 points
5th: Carlton 42 points

1976 (TOP 5)
Footscray went into the final round in fifth place, a game clear of Melbourne but with an inferior percentage. The Dogs were drawn to play top-of-the-ladder Carlton in the last round, while Melbourne had an ostensibly easy game against bottom-placed Collingwood. The Demons got the win, but the Dogs, who took a 22-point lead into the last quarter, held on for a dramatic draw with the Blues to claim a finals place by half a game.
Footscray 15.17.107 drew Carlton 15.17.107
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
5th: Footscray 46 points
6th: Melbourne 44 points

1977 (TOP 5)
Carlton, having been in the top five for the entire home-and-away season, went into the last round half a game clear of South Melbourne. Sixth-placed South were to take on North Melbourne (third) at Arden St, and Carlton (fifth) took on Footscray at Western Oval. The Dogs were seventh and out of finals contention, but could at least help shape the top five.
With Alan Stoneham starring, the Dogs were 38 points ahead at the final change, but Carlton players were perhaps not too worried as news filtered through that South were 23 points down a few kilometres away. The Dogs held off the Blues to win by 18 points, and as the players walked off word came through from Arden Street that the Swans has kicked six goals to one in the final term to pinch victory and a place in the finals – at Carlton’s expense – with the help of the mighty Dogs.
South Melbourne 15.13.103 d North Melbourne 14.9.93
Footscray 15.13.103 d Carlton 12.13.85
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
5th: South Melbourne 54 points
6th: Carlton 52 points

2022 (TOP 8)
It would be 45 years before the next chapter in this story was written, but it finally came in 2022. Just as they had in 1977, the Blues had spent the entire season in the qualifying bracket of the ladder (this time a top eight). But this time around, rather than playing the Bulldogs, they would be vulnerable to losing that place in the eight to the Dogs.
To steal Carlton’s place, the Western Bulldogs needed to first beat Hawthorn in Tasmania, and then hope the Blues would lose against Collingwood at the MCG. The Dogs took a while to shake off the Hawks, but got the job done.
Then came the waiting game, with the Blues-Pies match starting two hours later than the Dogs’ match. Bulldogs players watched from the Launceston airport as Carlton jumped four goals clear at three-quarter time. The Dogs’ season looked over.
But a remarkable last-quarter fightback by the Pies gradually closed the gap before a goal to Collingwood’s Jamie Elliott (left) with only minutes remaining put them ahead. The Magpies held on to win. The margin was a solitary point, but that was enough for the Bulldogs to claim a place in the finals for a fourth consecutive year.
The jubilant Bulldogs celebrated wildly at the airport lounge. Another triumphant chapter in the epic Dogs-Blues last-round saga had been written.
Western Bulldogs 12.15.87 d Hawthorn 10.4.64
Collingwood 11.9.75 d Carlton 10.14.74
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
8th: Western Bulldogs 48 points 108.89%
9th: Carlton 48 points 108.34%

2023 (TOP 8)
From a Bulldogs point of view, this was a chapter than should never have been written. With three home-and-away games remaining the Dogs were in good form and entrenched in the top eight, with games against Hawthorn (third from the bottom of the ladder) and bottom-placed West Coast to come.
Somehow the Bulldogs conspired to lose to both of those lowly sides, leaving them needing to beat Geelong at Kardinia Park (where they had not won in two decades) and hope that Carlton could beat GWS.
In a remarkable display of generosity from a side that had taunted and haunted the Bulldogs for decades, Geelong rested a host of players, almost gifting the Dogs a win. Unfortunately for the Dogs, the Blues did not hold up their end of the bargain.
Western Bulldogs 16.8.104 d Geelong 11.13.79
GWS 16.9.105 d Carlton 11.7.73
FINAL LADDER POSITIONS
7th: GWS 52points
8th: Sydney 50 points
9th: Western Bulldogs 48 points