Showdown 35, the last one at AAMI Stadium (Football Park), was played on August 5, 2013 and produced one of the most magical and memorable moments in the history of the two proud clubs.

Trailing the Crows by eight points, and with only 1min 40sec left in the game, Port Adelaide’s Angus Monfries latches onto a ball in his side’s forward half and is left one-one-one with opponent Daniel Talia.

After winning the ball, Monfries sidesteps Talia and kicks at goal with his wrong foot (left) from 49m out.

The ball looks like it is going through for a behind before miraculously bouncing at right angles and dribbling through for a remarkable goal.

With Showdown 45 on Saturday, exactly five years to the day since the goal, The Advertiser went inside the most famous kick in Showdown history.

THE STAR

ANGUS MONFRIES

“Jackson Trengove got the ball at half back and booted it forward,’’ Monfries recalled last week.

“I decided to go (lead) early on Talia. I got the ball and didn’t realise he’d slipped over.

“In my head I was going to turn left because I thought he’d go right.

“I ended up turning left then dummied right and threw it on my left boot and thought … oh no as it was spinning sideways.

“The way it was spinning I thought it could come back.’’

Monfries said he was hoping the ball would spin back but never expected it to rip and turn as much as it did.

“It was absolute luck, I’m not going to claim it was deliberate,’’ Monfries said.

“It was luck and it was a goal that gave us hope.

“We got within a few points (two points) to maybe win it.’’

Monfries was also involved in the final play in which he squared the ball from the northeastern forward pocket to Chad Wingard at the top of the goal square. Wingard then kicked the winning goal.

“I would have loved to kick a checkside and nail It, but you learn from your mistakes,’’ Monfries said.

“Early in the 2006 season at Essendon I had a similar situation and kicked it out on the full. The Hawks went bang, bang, bang (three goals in a row) and we ended up losing — Sheeds wasn’t happy.

“I leant from that and squared the ball up, Dom Cassisi did a great job at shepherding for Chad Wingard to the mark the ball and he kicked the goal with about 30 seconds to go.

“I didn’t know who was there, I just wanted to put the ball into a dangerous spot and I was lucky Chad was there.’’

THE SUPPORT CREW

CAMERON O’SHEA

O’Shea, who was the first Port Adelaide player to gain some metreage at the start of the play with 1min 50sec left, is at Carlton now.

But he’ll never forget Showdown 35.

“I just remember it being really hot around the contest,” O’Shea said.

“We just tried to get everything going forward and when I got it I tried to get it out to the wing.

“’Jacko’ got it and then he got it to Gus.

“I do remember there wasn’t much time left and I pretty much knew we had to get it out of defence and as far away from their goals as we could.

“I remember back in 2013 we always thought we were a chance if it was a close.

“We had massive faith in our fitness back then, massive belief in the playing group and were able to run over the top of a few teams towards the end of games.

“It’s still one of the best matches I’ve ever played in. I remember blokes jumping on top of each other … it’s a great memory.”

OLLIE WINES

Wines, who is now the vice-captain of the Power, remembers having a quiet day, but his teammates will speak about his acts of desperation.

He was in his first year at the club, still 18 on match day, and was the one who passed the ball to Monfries before Monfries found Wingard for the winning kick.

Wines, too, will savour the moment as one of his best football memories.

“I didn’t have my best day; I think I was very quiet that day,” Wines remembered. “But I remember I was the one who handballed to ‘Gussie’, who centred the ball to ‘Wins’ who kicked the goal.

“I’m trying to think where I was on the field when ‘Gussie’ kicked the goal.

“I think I must’ve been running behind him and we traced the ball going towards the point and had almost turned to go and man up our man when it’s done the right-angled bounce.

“And I think after ‘Wins’ kicked his goal it was just him and I inside the 50 — everybody else behind the ball.

“I think we won the clearance and got it forward but the siren had gone.

“That was a bit of a trend for us the whole year, coming from behind and getting those wins and guys like ‘Boaky’ (captain Travis Boak) and ‘Wins’ stepping up.

“To this day it was one of the most memorable wins of my career.”

THE FINISHER

CHAD WINGARD

The crowd at AAMI Stadium stood still as Chad Wingard marked a high, centring pass from Monfries, who had just one minute earlier kicked his famous off-break goal to put the Power two points behind the Crows.

There was less than a minute left of the game, and Wingard’s kick would decide the game one way or another.

Wingard had turned 20 just days earlier but looked like the coolest player on the ground.

Recalling the moment, that’s how he had felt, too.

“It’s been a while now but my recollection was just — for some reason — I just thought I was going to be in that position,” Wingard said. “I was a very confident man at that stage.

“I suppose I might have been a little bit overconfident but I love being in that position, even still, when the game’s on the line and you’re relied on.

“That’s the pressure that you love to put yourself under; you’ve done it since you were five years old in the back of the house shooting basketball.

“At the time, as soon as I took that mark I knew straight away I was going to kick the goal.

“If you watch the vision slowly you can actually see me celebrate mid-mark.

“I think Kane Cornes and Dom Cassisi shepherded for me to take that mark and I knew straight away as soon as I took that mark that we were going to win.

“As I said, that was very confident in my routine. I was only about 30m out but it’s amazing what confidence can do when you’re a young kid.”

THE GOAL UMPIRE

STEVE AXON

HE had the best view in the house of the Angus Monfries goal, but even goal umpire Steve Axon was left scurrying for position in the northern goalsquare at Football Park.

“I remember slightly over-committing,” said Axon of the goal. “I was deep into the behind area with no players within 20 metres.

“So I thought I’ll get nice and wide .. and the ball has taken a leg break (from Axon’s view) to the goalmouth ... I had to get on my skates pretty quickly.

“Freakish kick, obviously. I remember it got awfully close to the front of the post.

“It would have killed the moment to call for a score review,” adds Axon of the video system that was in its second season of use in the AFL.

Axon had watched the play unfold from a boundary throw-in at the southern end to Monfries’ remarkable kick with 100 seconds to play thinking the ball could fall only one way.

“Like the 40-odd thousand who were there, I was thinking it was going to bounce straight (for a behind) or bounce the other way to the point post,” Axon said. “I wasn’t expecting what happened ... and my positioning wasn’t the greatest (for a ball that was going to finish in the goal).

“I was running sideways for how fast the ball was moving. I had to use my speed to get behind it.

“It literally did go at right angles, as (Channel Seven commentator) Dennis Cometti says on the night. Not even Angus would have predicted that kick would have gone through.”

Axon gives Monfries no chance “even if he had 100 shots” of ever repeating the kick that changed the Showdown.

Axon compares the Monfries’ goal with one other famous kick that decides a match: Power midfielder-forward Robbie Gray’s goal that sank St Kilda at Adelaide Oval last season.

And Axon did not call for a score review on that kick as it evaded the stretching hands of St Kilda forward Tim Membrey with seven seconds to play.

“Angus Monfries’ kick was the most freakish at Football Park,” Axon said. “The Robbie Gray goal will always stick with me as well - it was an epic finish.”

THE COACH

KEN HINKLEY

The Port coach thought his team was gone.

When Crow Lewis Johnston took an uncontested mark on the 50m arc and was heading goalwards with two minutes left and his team leading by eight points in Showdown 35, the Power coach was certain he was going to taste a first derby defeat.

“Yeah, thinking back, I would have thought so,’’ said Hinkley, who had won his first Showdown in round three earlier in the 2013 season by nine points.

“In today’s game you never quite know how a game is going to unfold in the final minutes because it moves so quickly — as we found out this year (in round eight’s Showdown 44) — but it’s fair to say things didn’t look too good for us.’’

Hinkley, who in his first year as Power coach took the club from 14th the previous season to the finals and a fifth-placed finish, this week recalled how his side stole victory in the final Showdown at what was then AAMI Stadium.

“We got a bit of luck,’’ he told The Advertiser.

“The Monfries kick takes a freak right-angled bend and goes through for a goal. I’m not sure how the ball bounced like that.

“It was just one of those rare things that happens in a game of football sometimes.

“Still in today’s game you see the ball do some strange things at strange moments.

“It was like ‘wow’ because it’s pivoted, stopped, looked like it would clearly roll through for a point and then it breaks to the right and goes through the goals.

“An ounce of luck makes a big difference.’’

Just days earlier Wingard, who bagged five goals for the game to win the Showdown Medal as best afield, told The Advertiser that he lived for the big moments like his basketball idol LeBron James.

Hinkley described the win as “special’’ and said it was typical of Port’s fighting spirit that year when it came from the clouds to make the finals and win one at the MCG against Collingwood.

“It was pretty typical of our year,’’ he said.

“We were just trying to win every game we possibly could and just kept at it. And we found a way.’’

THE COMMENTATOR

DENNIS COMETTI

DENNIS Cometti is still waiting for Pythagoras to call - and not just to work through the angles from the Angus Monfries’ remarkable goal.

In the perfectly timed commentary for Channel Seven’s vision of Monfries’ perfectly placed goal in the last Showdown at Football Park, Cometti says - as only Dennis Cometti could: “If Pythagoras is watching, explain that.”

“I never understood Pythagoras at high school,” Cometti told The Advertiser on the fifth anniversary of Monfries’ epic goal.

“But I knew one day it would have an application for me.”

Even Pythagoras would struggle to explain the angles the Sherrin took as it crossed the northern goalfront at West Lakes in the Showdown that needed a miracle to save the Power from an upset defeat.

The off-break bounce that put Port Adelaide within two points of the lead with 96 seconds to play - after the margin had been 20 points eight minutes earlier - again underlines Australian football is played with the most unpredictable ball.

“We always talk about the cruel bounce of the ball,” Cometti said.

“I always admired Monfries. He was a clever little player for Essendon and Port Adelaide. Having won the ball - and then getting past Daniel Talia, twice mind you - to show how clever he was in evading opponents, Monfries made that ball do something only Pythagoras could explain.

“Has anyone found him yet?”

Cometti cannot explain the kick - nor where he found the inspiration to align the kick with Greek mathematical theories.

“Often we’ll be accused of plagiarism for what we say during a call,” he said.

“But there is no risk of that when you are commentating on something we have never seen before.

During the call, Cometti said: “Unbelievable ... haven’t seen anything like that ... it bounced at right angles.”

It was an unscripted pearl.

“I’m still not sure where the inspiration for that one came from ... except from those high-school maths lessons,” he said. “They now make sense.”