In modern football, entire months go by where nothing really happens, where the status quo is more or less maintained. In the 2021 grand final – in the time it takes to put the kettle on – a 57-year-old curse was buried. Halfway through the third quarter, the Western Bulldogs had kicked eight of the last nine goals. Marcus Bontempelli was playing himself into grand final folklore. Like a tiny bouncer ejecting a bikie, Caleb Daniel slung the biggest man in football onto the astro turf.
The Demons were being outplayed and outcoached. Their defenders, the best in the competition all year, were pointing fingers, shaking heads and under siege. On SEN, Gerard Healy was laying into Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver. “I was shitting myself, to be honest,” Petracca later said. “We were probably one goal away from the game slipping away,” the coach, Simon Goodwin, conceded.
