Essendon’s total control trumps Richmond’s beautiful chaos in AFL Dreamtime boilover

Football is constantly lurching from the sublime to the farcical and the execrable. The Sir Doug Nicholls Round was no exception. Like the man it honoured - a boxer, footballer, professional sprinter, Minister, social worker, Governor and leader of his people – the round contained multitudes. From the riveting (Collingwood), to the rickety (Carlton) and wretched (West Coast), this round had the lot.

You have to suspend disbelief as a football fan sometimes. An hour after a coach who denies an accusation of pressuring an Aboriginal couple to terminate a pregnancy stepped down, the league endorsed a Voice to Parliament. A few days later, the same coach was given a round of applause at the 23rd minute mark of the first quarter. A few hours later, his team was denied its tenth win in three years because of an interchange infringement.

Later that night, Aboriginal children and elders were dancing with champion footballers. At the same ground, four-time premiership coach Kevin Sheedy was belting out Archie Roach songs to 80,000 people, while a knucklehead allegedly glassed a spectator in the MCG’s Legends Room. And then, right at the death, Essendon ended a losing streak stretching back to 2014.

“I will never understand what Essendon fans have gone through over the last decade,” Essendon coach Brad Scott said following Saturday night’s Dreamtime match. Ever since Stephen Dank waddled into Windy Hill, nothing’s gone right for the Bombers. This year offered a clean slate - a new coach, captain, president, CEO, game plan and hope. But Scott was upfront right from the beginning. There would be no quick fix. They’d need to learn how to defend. There were years of bad habits to unlearn.

Scott has had some rotten luck. Injuries have