Essendon headed to the Gabba with a backline shorn of Jordan Ridley, Ben McKay and Zach Reid, with both first-choice ruckmen also out injured and Kyle Langford struck down too – to call their line-up threadbare wouldn’t be doing their injury crisis justice.
They left the Gabba not just with 2025’s most honourable loss – and a defiant middle finger sent the way of a certain writer who proclaimed a fortnight ago that they had always sucked and would continue to suck – but with a blueprint for a bright future there for all to see, and one that might come sooner than you’d think.
To hold the attacking juggernaut that is Brisbane on their own turf to 90 points from a whopping 62 inside 50s is a sterling display of team defence and desperate pressure, even if it did end up being 18 points too many.
To not just match the Lions’ murderer’s row of midfielders, but actively dismantle them from half time onwards, led by a single-handed display for the ages from Jye Caldwell, is a stunning effort from a side which has looked at times this year to be Zach Merrett or bust around the ball – even if it couldn’t lead them to victory.
And to make the Lions look decidedly second rate around the ball, particularly inside attacking 50, as a comeback that seemed impossible after a six-goal first quarter from the home side loomed larger with every passing minute, is a remarkable about face from a side that, a mere two weeks ago, couldn’t move the ball to save themselves in far more agreeable conditions at Marvel Stadium.
Credit to Brad Scott for perhaps his best coaching performance at the Bombers; credit to Caldwell for his midfield masterclass; credit to Nate Caddy for a breakout game that transformed him from a raw talent with eye-catching potential to a legitimate budding superstar; and above all, credit to the Dons as a whole for very nearly making the reigning premiers pay full price for the sort of drastic spiral into insipid football that could easily have cost them last year’s flag on about ten different occasions last September.
Key to it all was Scott’s willingness to make some radical moves in an area most coaches lack the gumption to do anything but leave well enough alone – at the magnet board.
Zach Merrett, the Dons’ best midfielder by a street? Switched, seemingly out of nowhere, to the backline – a hell of a risk given the Lions’ brutal on-ball brigade, but designed to give a young and inexperienced Bombers defence a calm head and safe distributor to marshal the troops.
Nic Martin, who has spent most of his first three and a half years as an AFL footballer floating on the outside between half-back and half-forward? Injected into not just the midfield, but centre bounces – his 19 centre bounce attendances of 28 is only eight fewer than what he mustered in 77 previous games (Merrett, by contrast, had just four).
Peter Wright, the Bombers’ main spearhead? Given licence to roam up the ground to support teammates further afield, and leave the 50 vacant on fast breaks for Caddy and the smalls to wreak havoc.
Archie Roberts, a Rising Star contender across half-back? Pushed up almost to a wing for much of the evening, and even entering attacking 50 on several occasions on fast breaks – and not looking out of place anywhere he roamed.
Some of the changes were made out of necessity: an early ankle injury saw Sam Durham rapidly converted to a wounded but still dangerous forward playing almost out of the goalsquare, while at the other end of the ground, Mason Redman was forced to play tall to try and combat Logan Morris and Darcy Gardiner.
It was a Bombers make-up we haven’t seen before – and you know what? It was captivating to watch, and unearthed weapons perhaps not even they knew they had.
Merrett and Durham, the Bombers’ two leading clearance-winners by a street this year – the Dons, incidentally, rank in the bottom six for clearances per game – had just two between them on Thursday night.
Doom, you might think, against a Lions midfield that has won more of them than any other team this year.
But no – with the midfield keys handed over to Caldwell, he produced a third quarter so fantastic as to both will the Bombers back into the game, and force the highest compliment possible from Chris Fagan and Brisbane: sending Josh Dunkley to curb his influence in the final quarter.
Caldwell’s third-quarter stats alone make for incredible reading: 16 disposals, seven clearances, two goal assists and a major of his own. You don’t get much more dominant than that.
The former Giant’s influence single-handedly gave the Dons stoppage supremacy, cutting off the Lions’ modus operandi that had seen them control proceedings in the first half: win the ball, get it to the outside, and rack up uncontested marks galore.
74 uncontested marks in the first half gave way to just 18 of them in the third quarter; 214 first-half disposals reduced to a mere 78 in the term too. From having more of the ball than they knew what to do with, the Lions suddenly couldn’t get their hands on the Sherrin if their lives depended on it.
Martin, meanwhile, remained the Dons’ premier outside winner – but using his new starting spot to try and force his Lions counterparts to defend him.
There were times it worked – Martin’s trademark spread across the ground was on full display, while his two goals typified the class he brings to the table – but 41 disposals from Hugh McCluggage going the other way suggests the ploy was probably a net negative.
Still, Merrett’s speed around contests needed replacing somewhere, and with seven score involvements, Martin is well worth persisting with as a full time on-baller.
Down back, until a over-bold kick inboard that allowed the Lions in for a crucial final quarter goal, Merrett was every bit the calming presence Scott would have been hoping he’d become.
Taking kick-ins, he kick-started plenty of the Bombers’ transition chains while avoiding the sort of disastrous kick-in turnovers that plagued them against the Bulldogs in particular; his presence also allowed the experiment of Roberts’ damaging kicking and excellent decision-making to be used further afield than normal without compromising the backline.
Merrett’s presence at half-back, and Durham forward, left the Dons with Caldwell, Martin and Will Setterfield as the primary on-ball unit, and their cohesiveness and spread of strengths – Caldwell as a clearance beast, Martin as the outside link man and Setterfield the defensive lynchpin spending plenty of time minding Lachie Neale – made for a far stronger group than we’ve seen from the Bombers this year.
The Bombers banged on seven goals from stoppages, the Lions just two – the reigning premiers’ worst differential in the stat this year, and a complete turnaround from how they massacred Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday.
And of course, there was Caddy inside 50. When was the last time a 10-disposal, two-goal game was more exciting?
There’s a lot of Charlie Curnow in the 21-gamer’s mix of overhead strength and pure athleticism around the ground: the sight of him galloping down the wing in the first quarter after hitting the ground running following a powerful pack mark was dazzling – and that was just the first half.
A Lions key defensive pairing of Jack Payne and Harris Andrews that might just be the best in the AFL were made to pay for not showing Caddy anywhere near enough respect – repeatedly letting him run and jump at the ball, he should have had three goals in the third quarter but for an over-exuberant response to a pack mark near goal, playing on and shanking the opportunity.
The highlight, of course, was his spectacular overhead goal later on in the term – but what you might miss in it is the Caddy trait that makes him particularly eye-catching: his rapid recovery from marking contests.
Without hesitation after the kick clears the pack, Caddy has turned toe on Payne and is sprinting into space near goal: his opponent, both slower and less alert than him, can’t keep up, giving Caddy the two and a half metres of space he needs to execute the miraculous.
Like Caldwell, Caddy was given the keys to a part of the ground previously controlled by senior teammates, Wright and Langford in his case; and while Thursday night might be just a taster and other teams will do their homework on stopping him carving them up, it has been a while since a young key forward has taken a game by the horns quite like he did.
Of course, there remain issues: the Bombers’ slow start gave the Lions a dominant lead just minutes into the match, and it meant that at the peak of their epic second-half surge, they could only muster a one-point lead, denying them any breathing space and leaving them vulnerable to Brisbane finding an extra gear late.
They remain vulnerable without the ball: after half time, the Lions’ uncontested marking was stymied by their clearance game, but their lack of pressure and inability to clog space ahead of the ball let Brisbane do as they pleased with little resistance. If anything, they should have led by more at the main break but for errant kicking, which would have snuffed out the comeback before it had begun.
But this is a team that, a mere fortnight ago, were disastrous in every aspect of the game in being humiliated by the Bulldogs, and even last week won few admirers in pulling past Richmond’s creche of cubs.
To progress from that to giving the reigning premiers an almighty scare on their own patch, with a first-gamer as their last key defender standing and holes all over the ground, required something radical from Scott and his team.
How they reacted can set them up perfectly for a strong remainder of the season, and a bright future ahead – that is, if they’re bold enough to stick with it even when the cavalry returns.
