Chooseday Night Football viewers on Fox Footy look back to merger game between Melbourne and Hawthorn in Round 22, 1996

CHOOSEDAY night football takes us back to Round 22, 1996 and the famous merger game between Hawthorn and Melbourne.

John Platten tries to evade a tackle

CHOOSEDAY night football takes us back to Round 22, 1996 and the infamous ‘merger game’ between Hawthorn and Melbourne.

Hawthorn needed to win the game to qualify for the 1996 finals series, while Melbourne could not make the finals and would finish in 15th position on the ladder with seven wins.

The Hawks would go on to win by one point in a Saturday night thriller at the MCG.

Jason Dunstall kicked 10 goals, while David Neitz slotted six for the Demons.

Joseph Gutnick & some of his family at the Melbourne V Hawthorn footy match.

Many of the 63,196 fans in attendance saw this game as the last time they would see their team play, as merger talks simmered through the back end of the ‘96 season before erupting in the following weeks.

Fans carried NO MERGER banners, while Hawthorn defender Chris Langford removed his brown and yellow jumper and thrust it in the air as he left the field in an act of defiance.

Jason Dunstall kicks for goal and scores one of his 10 goals.

NOTABLES

Melbourne — Neitz, Jeff Farmer, Adem Yze, Jim Stynes, Alastair Clarkson.

Hawthorn — Dunstall, Shane Crawford, Daniel Harford, John Platten, Paul Salmon.

MOST POSSESSIONS

Alastair Clarkson (MELB) — 29

Nick Holland (HAW) — 24

SHARPSHOOTERS

Jason Dunstall (HAW) — 10

David Neitz (MELB) — 6

Jeff Farmer gathers the ball as Andy Collins looks on

KEY STAT

There were just 52 tackles recorded for the game and Melbourne had only 12 of those. In Round 1 this year Adelaide’s Rory Sloane had 12 tackles alone and Collingwood had 83 against Fremantle. How the game has changed.

BROWNLOW VOTES

3 — Jason Dunstall

2 — Paul Salmon

1 — David Neitz

Andrew Leoncelli skittles Shane Crawford.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Mark Graham played 243 AFL games for Hawthorn and Richmond. Upon retiring he played amateur football for Old Xaverians and he is now working for an orthopedic prosthetic company — PurePlay Orthopaedics — which supplies surgeons with replacement hip and knee joints.

THE VERDICT (how fans voted)

1996 Hawthorn v Melbourne Round 22 — 49.65 per cent

1985 North Melbourne v Carlton Elimination Final — 25.87 per cent

1997 Western Bulldogs v Fremantle Round 1 — 24.48 per cent

NEXT WEEK

1987 Collingwood v Sydney Round 1

Victoria Park was never a nice place to play an away game, but on this day, Warwick Capper didn’t mind. The blonde bombshell finished with nine goals in his final season for the Swans.

1999 Western Bulldogs v Adelaide Round 16

For Bulldogs & Crows fans, the late 90s was a time filled with plenty of wins and plenty of classic encounters - this is about the best of them. At three-quarter time, Darren Jarman helped Adelaide to a 40-point lead, only for Brad Johnson’s Bulldogs to stage what would become one of the most remarkable comebacks of all time.

1997 Carlton v Essendon Round 1

There’s never been a lot of love between these traditional rivals, and there certainly wasn’t on this Easter Monday in front of more than 82,000 fans. James Hird would dominate, as would Lance Whitnall - it was a match that would go down to the wire

GO TO FOXFOOTY.COM.AU TO VOTE

Chooseday Night Football screens on Tuesday nights at 8.30pm on FOX FOOTY, channel 504.