25 years since Essendon won the last ever AFL reserves grand final, where are the players in that team now?

The Bombers are best known in 2024 as the team who can’t win a final, but in 1999, there was no such issue. And that included the last ever reserves premiership. We take a look back at where that team is now.

SEPTEMBER 25, 1999 : Bombers players celebrate victory after Essendon v St Kilda Reserves AFL grand final at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), 25/09/99. Pic Darren Tindale. Australian Rules

It is currently 7315 days since Essendon last won an AFL final.

That number will be at around 7650 days by the time they get another chance.

However, 25 years ago, the Bombers did win a final, and a grand final at that.

No we haven’t got our years wrong; before Essendon’s all-conquering 2000 premiership winning team came the 1999 reserves team that battled its way to a flag on the MCG from sixth.

They were supposed to be joined at the ‘G by their senior teammates but for one of the greatest shocks in modern finals history a week earlier - preliminary final defeat at the hands of Carlton by a point.

25/09/99 .Reserves 1999 Grand Final.St Kilda Vs Essendon at the MCG.a/ct /afl reserves

But the reserves team coached by favourite son Terry Daniher made it to what was to be the last ever AFL reserves game before it was merged into the former VFA to create the VFL.

The much fancied Saints had finished the season with five more wins than the Bombers, yet it was the red and black who were never headed, winning by 57 points.

The match began at 11am - once the TAC Cup granny was finished - and would have concluded by 1pm, just two hours before the main game began. No time for Katy Perry fireworks but Human Nature did sing Waltzing Matilda and a ham-fisted space themed skit featuring a Russian cosmonaut impersonator in a fake Mir space station was accompanied by the MSO playing the theme to Star Wars.

Aerial view of AFL Grand Final pre-match entertainment, 1999.

But before all that, it was a future favourite son of the Saints - someone who went within an awkward bounce of becoming an AFL premiership hero - who starred up forward for the Bombers.

Stephen Milne was a skinny kid hoping to get picked up in the 1999 draft when he kicked three and showed some of the craft that helped him to 574 goals after being picked up as a rookie by St Kilda in 2000.

Also in the Bombers line-up were two young midfielders who would become AFL premiership players in 2000 - Jason Johnson and Adam Ramanauskas.

25 years on from the final AFL reserves premiership, we went in search of where that team are now.

Originally published as 25 years since Essendon won the last ever AFL reserves grand final, where are the players in that team now?