Collingwood and Essendon’s Anzac Day draw a tortuous but fitting result

There are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there are things we don’t know. And then there’s the finish to today’s drawn Anzac Day clash. How on earth does one make sense of that game? Both sides had the four points in their grasp, but let them slip. Both sides played scintillating football at times, and had Frank Spencer-like calamities at others. Both sides had opportunities to win it at the death. Kyle Langford, Essendon’s goalkicking lock, the surest of bets from set shots, missed from 35 metres out. Earlier, Brodie Mihocek, an excellent player all afternoon, ballooned one across goal, and shanked one sideways a few minutes later.

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The Bombers were completely dominant early, winning in close and out wide, and finding their forwards with conviction and precision. The Pies were listless and wasteful, and if not for Bobby Hill’s checkside platter putter close on quarter time, the horse may have already bolted. By halfway through that quarter, Jordan De Goey and Steele Sidebottom had yet to touch the footy and the Bombers had double the possessions and all the momentum. When Scott Pendlebury chalked up his 10,000th career possession, the applause was almost apologetic and quickly drowned out by the home Essendon crowd.

But the Pies methodically worked their way back into it. It wasn’t the crazy cavalry charge of last week. This time, it was about picking holes and finding space. Crucially, they addressed their lacklustre work at the contest. And Darcy Moore, in his best game for the year, folded back, swatted, thwarted and kickstarted many a Collingwood attack. They kicked a lot of behinds, but so many of their set shots were from awkward spots, whether it was outside the ark or hemmed in a pocket.

And then, after an hour and a bit of momentum shifts, lulls and moments of madness, the game was trundling along when Jamie Elliott went into orbit. A preposterous leap, a take at the ball’s highest point, a vertiginous plunge and surely one of the bests marks we’ve seen this decade. Just a few feet from where he broke Essendon hearts years ago, he nailed the set shot – of course he did – and the intensity of the game went up a notch.

When Josh Daicos curled a gorgeous goal from the MCC pocket, the Pies had a seven-point buffer and his dad, back from the jungle and the worst show on television, knew he was the only person among 93,000 who could have bettered it. But to their credit, the Bombers kept coming. They booted three goals in as many minutes and Nick Martin was pivotal in all of them. Langford found himself on the end of two sizzling passes, and his kicks couldn’t have been straighter. But two critical errors from the substitute Nick Hind gave Collingwood a reprieve. In the desperate final seconds, Elliott spilled a lunging chest mark and who’s to say he wouldn’t have converted if it had stuck. They may as well have shut down the Essendon Football Club if that’d happened.

The Anzac medal for best afield went to Zach Merrett, who was suspended and missed last year’s game, but who’s been in slashing form this year. He’s polled coaches votes in every game so far and remains one of the most consistent and reliable footballers in the caper. He was among Essendon’s best in the last two wins they’ve had in this fixture, in 2017 and 2021, and was excellent again today. When they announced his name, the Essendon fans gave a belated roar, a small consolation in a split points affair.

The world of football is so relentless that it’s always a relief when the whole circus takes pause for a few minutes. Prior to the game, ever so briefly, this sport, and the stadium that’s home to it, went silent. For a few minutes, all you could hear was a flag flapping and a couple of duelling babies crying. And at the end, as there always is after a draw, there was stunned silence. It was the same silence the two clubs generated on this day 29 years ago. Today’s game may not go down in footy’s annals the way that day has, but it was a remarkable contest. A draw, as tortuous, as frustrating and as discombobulating as they are, was probably a fitting result.