Essendon’s Jye Caldwell gets a handball away in the Anzac Day draw between the Dons and Collingwood. Photo: AFL MEDIA
There’s plenty of us football traditionalists who wince every time there’s a draw during the AFL season because we know there’s inevitably going to be yet another debate about whether they should be done away with altogether and extra time used in every circumstance.
Funnily enough, though, even those of us who believe a draw and the splitting of four match points is its own valid result usually end up staging our own internal debate about which team would be happier or more upset by the final scoreline.
So who won the “moral victory” in the 30th staging of the annual Anzac Day clash and only the second-ever draw? Well, you could probably mount a plausible case for either Essendon or Collingwood.
It was the Bombers who perhaps played the more enterprising football, as well as getting out to the biggest lead, and dominating most of the key stats. But it was Collingwood which, once the Pies reeled in that early deficit, looked more likely to break the game open with a decisive burst.
Certainly, players, coaches and fans alike weren’t quite sure how to react. “Yeah, it’s a bit bittersweet isn’t it,” Essendon’s Jye Caldwell mused in the Bomber rooms speaking to Footyology after the frantic finish.
“I’ve never played in a draw before, but both teams had their moments, I reckon, like obviously (Brody) Mihocek kicking one out on-the-full, and then Jamie Elliott probably takes that mark (with seconds remaining) nine times out of 10, but we had some missed scoring opportunities as well. All in all, I reckon it was a great game of footy and great to be part of it.”
Yet, from a longer-term perspective, even plenty of Magpies might agree that it was a result from which their opponent will take more sustenance.
After the last couple of years, we’d expect Collingwood at the very least to offer the sort of grit and entertainment it did again on the big stage, even if this time for once it didn’t emerge from a close contest with all the spoils.
Essendon, though, is very much on probation as a potential player at the pointy end of the season. Fair enough, too, given the lack of success a once-mighty club has had for more than two decades now, and its propensity to drop its bundle under the fiercest pressure.
Which is why the Bombers are starting to rack up some decent brownie points in 2024. From seven outings now, only once, in an abject loss to Port Adelaide three weeks ago, have they failed to at least give a decent account of themselves.
“I’m loving going out and playing each week because now we know what we’re going to get from each other,” Caldwell said. “Previously, we probably would crumble in those situations, but I trust everyone out on that field now, they’re dependable. We’re gelling, and yeah, we’re really getting good confidence going within this group.”
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Brad Scott’s team keeps getting challenged, and so far at least in 2024, keeps responding in impressive fashion. A few weeks back, it was by shutting down some dangerous Bulldogs and seizing control of the midfield. In Adelaide last week, it was in coming from behind in hostile territory.
And on Anzac Day, the biggest home and away stage of the lost, against the reigning premier, and in front of 93,644, the fourth-highest home and away game crowd in football history, Essendon again held its nerve.
Yes, the Bombers might even have won had Kyle Langford’s normally pinpoint kicking not for once deserted him with just over a minute left on the clock. But earlier versions of Essendon, certainly that which collapsed so completely at the end of 2023, would hardly have been even in a position to win the game.
They would have long succumbed to Collingwood’s dominance in play and on the scoreboard during the second quarter, the Pies’ near five-goal deficit early on becoming instead a narrow lead just before half-time, and again in the crucial early going of the final term.
Instead, this time, the Dons toughed it out, absorbed the punishment, and hit back with some blows of their own.
Last year, on this occasion, Essendon worked its way to a 28-point three-quarter time lead only to throw it away with a goalless last quarter as Collingwood slammed home seven. More than half of those names in red-and-black remained the same, yet you sense just 12 months on this version wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Caldwell, one of those 14 players present for that disappointment, senses it, too.
“I feel like we’ve brought some key people through the door through the draft and through the trade period, and we’re all at a good age now where we can build and play some footy together with a strong system,” he said.
“We still have probably four or five of our best 22 to come back into the side. But whoever is in the side at the moment just plays their role, gives 100 per cent, and yeah, we’re playing some decent footy because of it.”
On this biggest of home and away stages, it may not have delivered Essendon a win. But what is being delivered more consistently by the Bombers now can’t be measured by the scoreboard alone. And it might well end up meaning a more sustained and significant victory yet.
This article first appeared at ESPN.
