The first ever grand final draw in VFL/AFL history involved Essendon and Melbourne and was an extraordinary match because the Bombers, who went in as overwhelming favourites thanks to their big victory in the second semi final, finished with a wayward tally of 7.27 (69) to Melbourne’s 10.9 (69).
Noel McMahen, now 83, is one of only four surviving members of the Demons’ team that took part in the game.
Then aged 21, McMahen still vividly remembers the frantic finish.
“I remember very clearly the last two minutes. The ball was in the right-hand forward pocket, down the Richmond end, and Norm Smith went for the ball, juggled it and it went out of bounds,” he told afl.com.au on Tuesday.
“At the boundary throw-in he collided with me and I collided with him. I thought we needed a goal and not a point and I was trying to get it across to the bloke in the goal square, but Norm knocked it into me and it went out of bounds again.
“Before it could be thrown in again, the siren went. That’s how close it was. We were two feet away from getting the point that would have won the game.
“But it would have been a shame, because they would have said we pinched it.”
Melbourne caused another shock a week later when it defeated Essendon by 39 points in the replay - 13.11 (89) to 7.8 (50) - and claimed the 1948 flag.
McMahen, who booted a goal in the replay and some years later became the Demons’ captain, believes a low-key build-up to the second grand final was one of the main reasons his team won.
“We trained normally,” he recalled. “Our coach, ‘Checker’ Hughes, kept us all pretty much in the same mode.
“Nothing special was done, although Essendon did something special. On the Saturday night after the draw they ate their ice-cream cakes, which had been decorated as if they had won the premiership.
“We told them all about it the next Saturday. They were so confident and that proved their undoing I think.”
