ANZAC Day is one of Australia’s most important national occasions. A day when the nation stops, honours and remembers the sacrifices made by Australian service men and women throughout our history.
Every year on April 25, the MCG plays host to one of the most recognisable ANZAC Day traditions, welcoming close to 90,000 people to one of the biggest sporting events on the Australian calendar – the ANZAC Day AFL match between Essendon and Collingwood.With no ANZAC Day footy this year, we’re counting down our top five ANZAC Day matches since the tradition began 25 years ago.
1995: Collingwood 17.9 (111) drew with Essendon 16.15 (111)
In 1995, Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy had an idea to pay tribute to the past service men and women of Australia through sport. Thus, the tradition of ANZAC Day football was born.The first – and some would say the best – ANZAC Day blockbuster came in 1995, with a stale-mate between the two sides seeing, fittingly, a draw to start the intense rivalry.
A crowd of almost 95,000 people attended the MCG, with thousands more locked outside for the inaugural match — almost 1,000 more than would attend the Grand Final later that year between Carlton and Geelong.
The margin hovered around the one goal mark for much of the first half, with neither team able to break the shackles of the other.
By half-time, off the back of consecutive goals from Mark Mercuri and Dustin Fletcher, Essendon were 16 point leaders.
The tables turned by three-quarter time, with Collingwood more than doubling their half-time score of 45 to lead 91 – 77. However the dominance was short-lived, with a goal from Bomber Ryan O’Connor with 16 minutes gone in the final term levelling the scores at 99-all.
The match remained deadlocked, although an opportunity presented itself in the dying seconds for a Collingwood win, with Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley opting to target an on-fire, yet out-numbered Saverio Rocca, rather than go for goal. The final scores of 111 apiece signalled the end of the first ANZAC Day match but the start of football tradition like no other.
Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher, who would go on to become a 400-gamer for the Club, recalled the need to keep emotions in check during the ANZAC Day ceremony prior to the match beginning.
“It can get quite emotional,” Fletcher said.
“The feeling that you get as a player to be lucky enough to play in that day, you forget about the actual two hours of the game, you just think about the event itself and what it means.
“We’re very privileged to play in it.”
Nathan Buckley also recalled the "surreal" feeling of being in the middle of the MCG during the Last Post.
“It gives you pause for thought, none moreso than the Last Post, to have 100,000 people in the stadium silent and all respectful and quite solemn around the significance of the day,” Buckley said.
“Often in that moment I just consider how fortunate I am to be where I am right at that moment with the group, doing things that I love and it’s very easy to connect that to the sacrifices that were made to give us that opportunity.”
The then-22 year-old Buckley received high praise for his play during the match, with 30 touches, a goal and three Brownlow Medal votes. However, it would be Pies forward Saverio Rocca, with nine goals, who would retrospectively be awarded the 1995 ANZAC Day Medal when the Medal started being awarded in 2000.
“Sav Rocca – I think he’s an underrated player,” Buckley said.
“The big powerful forwards of yesteryear, Sav was probably one of the last of those guys.
“He, particularly against Essendon, always stood up, and there were not many people who could beat Dustin Fletcher in that late nineties period and he did.”
“That’s probably why I kicked the ball to him [in that last passage of play] in a 1v3 situation – but he could mark everything.”
Fletcher, who lined up on Rocca for much of the game, including that final kick of Buckley’s, admitted that Rocca had an outstanding match.
“I did have my work cut out for me during that game.
“Sav kicked nine that game and four were on me.”
So began a rivalry, which 25 years later continues to provide classic matches and famous victories for both Collingwood and Essendon.
