The Western Bulldogs Best 20 Games: 20-16

The Footscray/Western Bulldogs Football Club will play their 2000th V/AFL game this Saturday against Hawthorn at UTAS Stadium and as such the team at The Salty Bulldog believes it would be quite fitting to celebrate the milestone by ranking the 20 best games in the club’s history.

In our previous 1999 games, the Bulldogs have had 907 wins, 22 draws and 1070 losses for an overall winning percentage of 45.4%

The Bulldogs are the last of the Victorian clubs to reach the milestone after taking 96 years, three months, and 13 days to reach our 2000th match.

In the first edition of our top 20 games, The Salty Bulldog will be revealing the games ranked 20th to 16th with the remaining matches to follow through the rest of the week in the leadup to the game.

20) Round 13, 1982, Western Oval

Footscray 16.11.107 def Hawthorn 12.20.92

Just ten weeks earlier, these two sides clashed at Waverley Park, and very little stood in Hawthorn’s way as they cruised to a record-breaking 143-point thrashing over Footscray. At the time, it was Hawthorn’s biggest ever score, biggest winning margin, and Footscray’s greatest losing margin. It wasn’t a great day.

The return fixture looked set to follow a similar trend, when the Hawks took a commanding 33-point lead into the last quarter, against a Footscray side with just one win to its name all year.

But then someone flipped the script in dramatic fashion.

An eight-goal-to-zero final term set the stage for a barnstorming Footscray finish, with five-goal hauls from Simon Beasley and Ross Christensen sealing a memorable 15-point victory. What made the victory even more incredible was that Footscray finished last with just three wins in 1982, while Hawthorn finished the ladder in 2nd place, and reached the Preliminary Final.

19) Round 3, 2021, Marvel Stadium

North Melbourne 5.8.38 def by Western Bulldogs 25.17.167

When these two sides met in the annual Good Friday match earlier this year, many expected the Bulldogs to maintain their unbeaten start to the year. Few, however, predicted just how emphatic the win would be.

The contest was fairly even for most of the first half, before the Bulldogs pulled away late in the half, and then put the foot down after halftime. Six goals to none in the third quarter, and then a mammoth 10-goal final term saw records tumble all over the place.

The Bulldogs went on to record their greatest ever winning margin, but the highlight of the day was Josh Bruce’s performance; the key-forward became the first Bulldog since Simon Beasley in 1987 to kick 10 goals in a match, bringing up the milestone in the final minute of the game.

18) Round 21, 1997, Western Oval

Western Bulldogs 12.14.86 def West Cost 10.8.68

A match not famous for any memorable performance or crazy scoreline, but will forever live on in the hearts of all Bulldogs fans.

For the 643rd and final time, the Western Bulldogs took to the field at the Western Oval, and saluted their 348th win at the venue with an 18-point triumph against West Coast.

In typically cold, wet, and windy conditions, 26,704 people saw Chris Grant dominate in the air, while Rohan Smith booted 3.4 and Jose Romero collected 28 disposals. Football has since returned to the venue after a 17-year hiatus, most notably through the VFL and AFLW, but it won’t ever quite capture the same magic that it possessed when the great Footscray sides of yesteryear took to the field.

Chris Grant saluted the Western Oval for the last time with a fitting best-on-ground performance. Source: AFL.com.au

17) Round 20, 2006, Melbourne Cricket Ground

Western Bulldogs 16.9.105 def Adelaide 14.14.98

After blowing a chance to seal a top-eight spot the week before against Port Adelaide in Darwin, the Western Bulldogs came up against an Adelaide Crows outfit that had been on top of the ladder for eight consecutive weeks, was the previous year's minor premiers and a team who had the wood on us in recent season, having lost on five of the past six occasions.

After trailing by 12 points at quarter time, the Crows would kick nine of the next 12 goals to build a 31 point lead 13 minutes into the third quarter and it seemed the wait for finals football would have to wait at least one more week.

But this Bulldogs outfit was made of sterner stuff and slammed eight of the next nine to regain the lead once again by 13 points. A tense final 10 minutes occurred as the Dogs trailed by four points with five minutes left before Jordan McMahon and Adam Cooney sealed a famous win for the Club.

This round 20 victory holds a dear place in my heart especially as a young Bulldogs fan who was really starting to get into supporting the Club and the seven-point win confirmed our passage for finals football in September for the first time since 2000.

Seeing a young Adam Cooney light it up with 33 disposals and five goals while seeing star veteran Scott West gather 45 possessions in a must-win game for the club was truly special at the time and it gave me as a recently turned 10-year-old genuine hope for the future.

16) Round 7, 2005, Gabba

Brisbane Lions 12.15.87 def by Western Bulldogs 15.20.110

This game too might not have been the most memorable as there aren't any milestones or achievements that came from it but it was a win that showed the competition that the Western Bulldogs under new coach Rodney Eade were something to be reckoned with.

Consider the circumstances; we are up against a three times premiership champion team and a side that has made the past four Grand Finals, we had just lost our captain Luke Darcy to a season-ending ACL injury against Geelong at Kardinia Park the previous round, we were 2-4 going into the game and we had finished 16th and 14th over the past two years.

And yet none of this seemed to matter as the Bulldogs lead the Brisbane Lions by 25 points at half-time in what shaping up as the Club's biggest win since defeating Essendon in 2000.

The three-time premiership champions were still proud and roared back into the contest in the third quarter trimming the margin to nine points before closing even further at the 12-minute mark of the final term, trailing by just four points.

Better sides would have fallen over but this new breed of Bulldog showed the composure and maturity to close out the game with Nathan Eagleton, Mitch Hahn and Robert Murphy and display that the bark had once again returned to the Dogs after a hollow few seasons.

Coming up against a side that had 805 games more experience in a hostile environment would have meant a lot for the group at that time and given them the belief for the future.

The Western Bulldogs walked off the Gabba after their Lion-killing effort against Brisbane at the Gabba. Source: Getty Images.