While Melbourne Cup Day provided Melbourne's masses with a labor-free day last Tuesday, the latest instalments of 'The Bombers: Stories of a Great Club' continued to run down the straight unimpeded.
Although episodes 3 and 4 of the 'Fox Sports' aired docuseries charted the Dons' lean years of the 70s and early-80s, the latest pair were bookended by premiership glory for the famous old club.
Having taken an outsider's view of the sterling stills, snippets and stories of the past fortnight, I've once again poured through the record books and pondered another set of questions that arose across the series' penultimate week.
So, before the final set of chapters are aired and completed next week, here are another 10 queries that cropped up from the recount of Essendon's most recent golden age.
While the practice of swapping jumpers following grand finals had been a customary act of sportsmanship for decades, by the time the mid-80s had rolled around, most players seemed pretty content to hold onto their grass-stained garments.
As someone that isn't a paid-up Bombers member, I can't say I have spent any serious length of time watching re-runs of the 1984 decider, so after seeing Peter Bradbury clad in brown and gold for the first time, my interest was definitely piqued.
I was always under the assumption that Richmond's 1980 grand final win was the last time that any league footballers had foisted their sweaty jumpers on their opponents, yet with the former Port Melbourne player looking momentarily like the only happy Hawk that afternoon, I guess I was wrong.
Having delved back into the archives, there are several examples of players that have traded their colours for those of another since that day, however, none took place on the last Saturday in September.
Following Hawthorn's 1988 Panasonic Cup win over Geelong, Dermott Brereton swapped his vertical stripes for some horizontal hoops, and then 18-months later, his Big V was switched out for South Australian chevrons after the Vic's 86-point win on a muddy MCG.
A set of Essendon skippers have also sent their sashes on for alternative options, with James Hird and Glenn Archer reprising the tradition after trading jumpers after Essendon's 35-point defeat in Round 7, 2007.
Dyson Heppell then followed suit by exchanging jumpers with his victorious counterpart, Trent Cotchin, almost 10-years to the day later.
With sponsors unlikely to be too chuffed with players displaying other brands as they claim their medallions each season, this romantic gesture is almost certain to be dead and buried in this current age of total professionalism.
This much was evident back in 1984, as even though Bradbury was wearing a Hawthorn jumper for a handful of euphoric minutes, when it came time to climb the dais, a quick-thinking member of the Dons' premiership party had switched the defender back into a Nubrik stamped sash.
While hyperbolic statements and football quite often go hand in hand, sometimes it's impossible not to take certain quotes seriously.
As someone that played a key role in the Bombers' 1985 flag, Mark Harvey is more than qualified to speak of the quality of his those that called Windy Hill home 36-years ago.
And as someone that was Kevin Sheedy's right-hand man during the Dons' premiership triumph in the first year of the new millennium, the reasons as to why that current crop was so successful won't be a mystery to Harvey either.
Still, while the dual All Australian stated last Tuesday that the elder of this pair of premiers was the superior side, his concrete view still has room for questioning.
Despite the 15-year gap between both of these glorified and famous Essendon lists, the difference in winning percentage between the duo still remains at less than 10 per cent.
Having lost just one game across their dominant 25-game campaign, the 2000 Bombers claimed the club's 16th cup with a winning percentage of 96 per cent. While only losing on three occasions, the earlier iteration saluted with a comparative figure of 87.5.
Given their premier statuses, neither side had any troubles with scoring across their respective seasons.
Still, this is another statistic in which the Bombers' most recent premiership team reigned supreme, as they finished with a mean of 131 points for and 80 against. Comparatively, their ‘85 equivalents ended by scoring slightly less (126-points) and conceding a fraction more (89) per week.
Although the James Hird lead squad continued to cruise to the finish line by defeating the Demons by 60-points in early September 2000, their Terry Daniher counterparts beat them in this metric by a neat three-goals.
As Essendon's total of 170-points against Hawthorn in 1985 is the second-highest score ever recorded in grand final history, perhaps Harvey does have a point, even if all of the other numbers suggest otherwise.
Add in the fact this 26 goal and 14 behind effort came against a collective comprised of nine Australian Football Hall of Fame members, and the formerly blonde Bomber's contention starts to hold even more water.
When you take a look at the squads that would take part in this hypothetical scratch match, the VFL version would be afforded the right field four Team of the Century members in Mark Thompson, Tim Watson, Terry Daniher and Norm Smith Medallist, Simon Madden.
While their younger opposition would still be able to send fellow 20th century champions James Hird and Michael Long out to battle, the additions of Matthew Lloyd, Scott Lucas and Dustin Fletcher should see them offer a more than competitive match-up.
As I'm not sure a defence of Paul Weston, Kevin Walsh and Billy Duckworth would have had enough in their kitbags to quell Lloyd and Lucas, if this 'Field of Dreams' type contest ever took place, I'd be willing to make a wager with Harvey.
Still, if after four-quarters of action I was forced to leave Windy Hill with lighter pockets, you wouldn't hear any complaints from me.
Sometimes nicknames work due to rhymes and wit, and on other occasions, they stick due to the person on the receiving end absolutely despising their new title.
Still, when Leon Baker's moniker is put under the microscope, all that can be found is perfection.
Having won a pair of premierships with WAFL side Swan Districts in 1982 and 1983 before shifting across the Nullarbor to play leading roles in the Bombers' back-to-back wins during the following two seasons, the Western Australian, quite rightly, earned the nickname of ‘Leon Baker: Premiership Maker'.
While some may suggest that coincidence played a part in Baker's streak of mid-80s success, the statistics certainly don't.
Over the course of Baker's 86-game stint at Windy Hill between 1984 and 1988, the centreman earned three State of Origin guernseys, a pair of podium finishes duringCrichton Medal counts and a place in the 1985 All Australian team.
All of these achievements came following averages of 19.9 disposals and just over 0.8 goals per game.
However, when one looks only at his pair of grand final appearances under Kevin Sheedy, these figures jump drastically to 24 and three.
Although a Norm Smith Medal in either of the heavy wins over Hawthorn never arose for the man with the Midas touch, given his ability to rise each September for four years straight, there's no doubting that Baker held a Colonol Sanders-like recipe for premiership success
Across the course of his more than 50-years in the footballing spotlight, Kevin Sheedy has been called a myriad of different things.
While almost anything in between genius and madman have been applicable at various stages, the descriptors of idealistic and romantic have always been apt.
Although Sheedy coached any array of fathers, sons, brothers and distant relatives over the course of his 27-season stint at Bomberland, perhaps the greatest show of Kevin keeping it in the family came in Round 22, 1990 when all four Daniher brothers ran out onto Moorabbin Oval to face the Saints.
While at least one of the Ungarie-born Bombers had called Windy Hill home between 1978 and 1997, it wasn't until 1987 that the entire set of Anthony, Chris, Neale and Terry were reunited under the one roof.
Given the near-decade large age difference between the eldest, Terry, and the youngest, Chris, finding a stage where each member of the New South Welsh quartet was either fit or firing often proved a tough task for Sheedy.
Yet, following a persistent line of questioning from Edna Daniher, a window arose for the collective to play their only game of AFL football together.
As the members of the family band combined for 74 touches throughout a 35-point win, the fantasist in the coaches box was proven to look sound of mind on that Saturday afternoon.
However, would any of Sheedy's contemporaries have held a desire to make history in this manner? And even if they did, would they have had the nerve to pull the trigger?
Considering the master coach's will to win was almost outweighed by his legendary ability to spruik contests with the vigour of Don King, one would suggest that Sheedy was probably the only steward that would have gone out of his way to make a mother's wishes come true.
Still, this decision to go the extra mile likely arose as Sheedy himself is one of four boys from a Catholic family, so the legendary coach's own personal history almost certainly played a part in him creating more within the boundary line.
Although the thought is almost impossible to digest given his glittering career saw him earn almost every accolade on offer, but once upon a time, James Hird was a majority vote away from the footballing scrap heap.
While the notion that the Bombers' golden boy was on the verge of being delisted was raised last Tuesday night, the nuts and bolts of Hird's lifeline weren't openly discussed.
So, as someone whose eyebrows were raised by the prospect of a ‘Hird-less' Essendon, I immediately fired up Google in an effort to get to the bottom of a narrative that has remained virtually unaired across the past three-decades.
Having been drafted with the 79th pick of the 1990 draft, cynical arguments could have been made that the only reason the Canberra-born Hird had made his way to Windy Hill was due to his family's lineage at the club.
Given a grandstand on Brewster Street still bears the name of James' grandfather and former boardroom giant, Allan Hird Snr, if you were someone that ever subscribed to this theory, your view certainly doesn't appear baseless.
And after failing to debut in his first season and only managing four appearances in the number 49 guernsey throughout his second, it appeared that the naysayers had begun pervading the boardroom by the end of 1992.
According to a piece by Jonathan Horn of The Guardian in 2015, a six-person vote was undertaken as to whether the skinny, third-generation Bomber was worth persisting with - a poll that saw Hird saved by a 4 to 2 margin.
Despite the fact that the identities of those who were happy to heave-ho Hird have remained under wraps, what is known is that Kevin Sheedy was the man who went in to bat for his future captain.
As Hird was voted as Essendon's third greatest ever player a full five seasons before his retirement, I guess one of the many morals at play here is to never question the former plumber's judgement.
Although the 1993 season provided Essendon with close to a full trophy case of achievements, the ultimate prize was almost outside of their grasp on multiple occasions.
While it may seem like a waste of time questioning the merit of a side that claimed both the night and day flags with a roster that contained the Michael Tuck, Norm Smith and Brownlow Medallists for the year, the numbers show that the 1993 ladder finished closer than the 2011 Melbourne cup.
Following a strangely scheduled regular season in which each of the competition's 15 teams played 20 games and enjoyed two byes, the final gap between fifth on the ladder and a place in the bottom four was just a pair of wins.
Despite Essendon's 13-1-6 record proving enough to see them claim the minor premiership, the margin of just one-and-a-half per cent over the Blues proved that the Bombers' place atop the season's summit was far from a cakewalk.
Add in the fact that the Dons were behind on the scoreboard during major intervals in six of these 13 victories and this storied season with its catchy alliterative tag could easily have been one that ended short of September success.
If this wasn't enough, had a sudden onset of flatulence not occurred in the Adelaide dressing rooms at half-time of the preliminary final, the Crows' 42-point lead may have proven insurmountable for the Sheedy's youthful outfit.
However, as the club's 15th cup still sits behind lock and key at Tullamarine, any efforts to pry it away are completely futile.
With average scores sitting just above 70-points per game between Rounds 13 to 16, the moves to raise the workload of scoreboard attendants throughout the AFL fell flat across the 2021 season.
Although there were outliers, the vast majority of these free-wheeling results that occurred across the league's 124th campaign arose during one-sided clashes.
As inaccuracy in front of goal and defensive mindsets have seemingly become the norm throughout the contemporary competition, the question must be asked, what exactly would you be willing to part with to watch a game that came complete with 78 scoring shots?
While the Round 6 contest between Essendon and Geelong took place at the MCG less than 30-years ago, the 42-goal game in 1993 may as well have been played in another lifetime.
Without completely dissecting the game's narrative, this massive haul of majors came from the boots of 14 different players and were amassed at a rate of a goal every two-minutes and 51-seconds.
To put that in perspective, if you went to the toilet, bar and the hot dog stand while the Sherrin was live, you were running the risk of missing almost a week's worth of action in today's football.
If you need further proof of just how prolific the scoring was that May afternoon, both the Bombers and the Cats entered the half-time interval having scored more than the previously mentioned month-long average from this year.
Despite spending the vast majority of my sub-par football career trying to ruin forward's days, it may seem strange that I'm harping on about a game where every key defender seemed asleep.
But as someone that also witnessed their own AFL side score 10 or fewer goals per game on 10 occasions this season, I'm in dire need of a palate cleanser.
To answer my own question, I'd be willing to pay far more than twice the price of admission to see a game that provided more than twice the action.
While I don't think I could stomach seeing such an open game several times a week, when witnessing contemporary teams enter their three-quarter time huddles deadlocked at 50-apiece, or something equally as meagre, it's tough for the mind not to wander towards thoughts of uninhibited offense.
If you haven't had a chance to witness this scoring spectacle, free a few hours from your schedule and enjoy.
Make sure to keep an eye out for a pre-Brownlow James Hird trying his best to quell an undeniable Gary Ablett Snr.
There's no denying his run, there's no denying his weave and there's no denying the contact he made, but given Stephen Silvagni's steadfast appeals, would Michael Long's goal in the 1993 grand final have passed the ARC's ‘rigorous' review system?
Given how iconic Long's effort continues to be, the romantic in me is glad that it was awarded six-points that afternoon, but as there is still an itch of contention that has lasted longer than 28-years, I feel obliged to scratch it.
With arguably the greatest full back of the 20th century outstretched and irate only inches in front of them, it's hard to imagine that any goal umpire in the contemporary era would be willing to conclusively call Long's effort a goal.
And having watched YouTube footage of the major on repeat, I'm still not sold on the final result, but the prevailing sentiment across the internet was that 'SOS' almost certainly had a point.
Given the Sherrin moves from Sean Denham's hand into the gutter of the Ponsford Stand with a speed that even Usain Bolt would be forced to tip his hat at, it's borderline impossible to come to a concrete decision.
However, when Channel 7's cameras rotated, the footage shows that Silvagni's slips effort that both slowed and deviated the ball probably should have been rewarded.
Yet, even if the goal review system was able to be called upon in 1993, I, like many, have zero confidence that anything other than the words ‘Umpire's Call' would have shown up on the big screen.
As someone that loves almost every one of the magic moments that are woven into the tapestry of our great game, I promise I'm going to cease seeking loose stitches in what is surely Long's magnum opus move.
But if an opportunity arose to speak with the man tasked with waiving the flags that afternoon, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be back picking and tearing at this fabric pretty quickly.
Technology has come a long way since 1993.
Take stock of your belongings and the mere thought that each of us has a device in our pocket that holds the answers to unlimited queries is enough to explode the mind.
Still, if you wanted to send a thought, message or request almost 30-years ago, there were no emojis, texts or tweets, only landlines, mail or fax.
Should you show an average millennial or Zoomer a fax machine, you are likely to receive responses ranging from disbelief to complete and utter apathy.
To be completely honest, I'm still not entirely sure how these reverse printers work in totality.
And while almost anyone in the western workforce at the tail end of last millennium probably did, the procedure for posting a facsimile message were apparently lost on Neale Daniher late that September.
Ahead of the Bombers' clash with rivals Carlton in the grand final, Daniher, Kevin Sheedy's assistant at the time, had devised a plan to mute the Blues strongest note – their star-studded midfield.
Over the course of their latest meetings, names like Williams, Bradley, Ratten, Hanna and McKay had dominated the Dons after running riot from the tap work of Jurassic Park's own Justin Madden.
Still smarting from their narrow qualifying final loss to Carlton earlier in the month, Daniher devised a specific plan to quell this engine room ascendency and fired off his dossier to Sheedy and his fellow coaching crew.
However, it also ended up in the hands of an anonymous party with ties to the opposition camp.
While this fax sent from the former skipper's workplace accidentally made its way to a work contact, Daniher himself explained that the person who received his recipe for Essendon's 15th flag was in fact a sponsor of the Carlton Football Club.
There are multiple views as to what happened next. According to the second eldest of the Ungarie-born Bomber brethren, the faceless person simply froze instead of passing on the plan to the Blues' head coach, David Parkin.
In the words of Parkin himself, this innocent bystander that was then caught between the century long firing of bullets between favelas was told that police would become involved if Daniher's dossier was passed on.
Irrespective of where the truth lies, Carlton's midfield was blunted badly during their 44-point loss in the season's decider and the blueprints to beat the Blues were only passed on after the final siren
According to Parkin, his squad's ability to best all and sundry for numerous seasons was a laughing matter at Princes Park.
"For three years we had dominated centre-bounce clearances ... from Justin Madden's around-the-clock work," he told The Herald Sun in 2013.
"For whatever reason, no one had worked us out. We pissed ourselves laughing for a while that we were able to roll along with this dominance."
However, these grins had turned to tears by ‘Mad Monday' when Parkin finally got his hands on the Bombers' strategies.
"He said, 'I need to see you immediately'. I saw him in the social club and he produced this bloody analysis," he revealed.
"We both sat there and cried. I don't think Neale got any credit for it, but he produced the strategy to undo us.
"You talk about carrying a loss, I carried that one."
As Parkin departed the game having played key roles in five premierships, I hope he isn't still losing sleep about being the last to know why his midfield was so successfully blanketed.
Still, I'm sure that the communication breakdown is never far from the 79-year-old's mind each time the old rivals have done battle in the decades since.
Quantifying the contribution Michael Long has made across his 52-years on earth is an impossible feat.
He is a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a friend, a Bomber and a legend.
According to books written in his honour, Long remains as elusive off the field as he is on it, but this just seems in keeping with a man that exuded a humbleness whilst conversely striking fear into opposition huddles.
While everyone will have different memories of the man, I've long seen Long as a symbol of might that was born from decades of carving literal and figurative paths all so it became easier for the next generation to follow suit.
While the sum of the man is an equation that rocket scientists would prove unable to reach, the task of assessing his stamp on Australia's indigenous game is no smaller challenge.
By simply listing Long's list of achievements across the course of his 13-seasons in red and black, the lack of effort required just doesn't seem sufficient.
By describing his style that ranged from languid to lethal, no number of superlatives quite seem to hit the right mark.
As mentioned, Long's greatest impartment was to provide footsteps worth following. And as one of the first players to make his way from the Top End to the top flight, his posters were sure to have adorned many walls between Tennant Creek and the Tiwi Islands.
To move away from home and hurtle in at the Sherrin in foreign conditions requires more than just a modicum of courage, but to take on the dated landscape of the game and, again, form it for the better, true bravery is required.
While Long rightfully held Collingwood's Damien Monkhorst accountable after being racially abused on Anzac Day, 1995, his willingness to shake hands in unity following the construction of a code-wide vilification policy was stronger than any hip and shoulder ever dished out.
Add in the fact that the pair reportedly remain close to this day and the character of the man beyond the red sash becomes much clearer.
Long's efforts to continue pressing for proper reconciliation and education after his boots were hung up remain both the stuff of legend and a beacon of hope amongst some of the rancid politics that are still rife within our country.
And although this may have little to do with his abilities as a footballer, given he was more than able to both dazzle eyes and challenge minds, Long's legacy as an athlete, and as an Australian, is completely unique and should always be celebrated as such.