When the Adelaide Crows came to Etihad Stadium for their Round 7 match against the Western Bulldogs on this day in 2016, it re-opened a few old wounds for the Dogs — players, coaches and fans alike.
Only eight months earlier, the Bulldogs had succumbed to the Crows in an Elimination Final across town at the MCG, bringing to a heartbreaking end Luke Beveridge's first season as an AFL coach.
The match was a shoot-out and in the balance for virtually the entire night, and it was lauded by many as the best game of the 2015 AFL season.
Bulldogs fans heading to the Docklands for the return match on this day four years ago were perhaps not expecting another shoot-out, but that's just what they got. This time, however, they would go home happy.
After only 10 minutes of play, each team had kicked two goals and the game did indeed look like being another high-scoring affair. But the Bulldogs burst free after that, kicking the last four goals of the first term to take a 24-point lead.
When Mitch Wallis and Jake Stringer added two further goals early in the second quarter, the Dogs were suddenly six goals clear and heading for a big win. But the Crows hit back with the next four goals to cut the margin to 14 points before Jack Redpath settled the Bulldogs with his first. At half time it was the Dogs by 20.
Caleb Daniel extended the buffer to 26 points within 30 seconds of the start of the second half, but Adelaide came again with another burst of four consecutive goals, two of those to Josh Jenkins who, having kicked three goals in the first half, was having a field day.
After that Crows run of goals, the Dogs' lead was just two points, 10 minutes into the third term. The pendulum swung once more over the next 10 minutes, with majors to Stringer, Bailey Dale and Marcus Bontempelli, but once again Adelaide bounced back through Rory Atkins and Jenkins, who now had half a dozen goals.
As he had late in the second term, Redpath settled the Dogs once more with the final goal of the third. The Bulldogs took an 18-point lead into the final quarter, but most fans expected Adelaide to continue to challenge. They were right.
For each goal the Bulldogs kicked in the first 15 minutes of the term, the Crows responded with two. Midway through the quarter the Dogs' lead was just six points. They had a couple of chances to deliver knock-out blows but Bontempelli and Dale both missed gettable shots, and when Jenkins kicked his eighth goal, the lead was just three points.
With the game on a knife's edge, it was the Bulldogs' youth who came to the fore. Nineteen-year-old Bailey Dale showed great poise in just his 13th match to deliver a pinpoint pass to 20-year-old Bontempelli. 'Bont' had missed a couple of crucial shots in the third quarter of that Elimination Final eight months earlier, and now was a chance for redemption.
Showing nerves of steel, Bontempelli unleashed a deadly accurate long bomb, sealing a thrilling win. Seconds later Dale himself added a final nail in the Crows' coffin when he kicked his third goal. The siren sounded seconds later, the Bulldogs' 15-point win taking them to 5-2 and a place in the top four.
Bontempelli's match-winning goal capped off one of his best games yet. He picked up 30 possessions and two Brownlow votes (the umpires awarded three to Crow Jenkins). Jake Stringer's four goals earned him one vote.
The redemptive win marked another milestone for the Bulldogs, and they would mark many more in 2016 as they forged a path to a drought-breaking premiership.
