When Rochester Football Club legend David Williams lined up alongside Michael Tuck at half-forward for the start of the 1988 VFL Grand Final, Melbourne Football Club were looking to snap a 22-year flag drought.
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Instead, they were consigned to a record-breaking 96-point defeat to a rampant Hawthorn outfit - the largest in grand final history and a record that stood until 2007.
With less than a week to go until the 2021 decider, Melbourne's drought has extended to 57 years and once again they have the opportunity to snare the club’s first flag since 1964.
Before they do that, they'll have to conquer the demons of grand finals past.
Prior to the first bounce of the infamous 1988 decider, the Dees begun a glorious run through the finals, climbing from fifth spot to a grand final berth.
Williams, a talented young forward from Rochester, had joined the club in 1983 and by the 1988 decider was a Demons mainstay, booting 100 goals from his 66 games.
He recalls the exhaustive finals campaign where Melbourne had played every final to get to the big dance.
They conquered West Coast, Collingwood and 1987 premiers Carlton in a marvellous run, but the prize for their hard work was an unenviable one - a date with the juggernaut of the 1980s.
The Hawthorn Football Club.
"Come grand final (day), we had done it pretty hard," Williams said.
"During the season we played (Hawthorn) twice - we'd beaten them at the MCG by about 20 points one game.
"Six weeks later, we played them out at Waverley Park. Dermott (Brereton) and (Jason) Dunstall went berserk in the first quarter - by then the game was over.
"We knew that if we were going to beat them in the grand final we would have to play to our potential."
Potential, there was, in the Melbourne side that clawed its way to that hallowed last game in September.
They were admittedly underdogs, but John Northey's men were a tight-knit squad and arguably the fittest side in the competition, according to Williams.
"John certainly trained us hard," he said. "We were by far the fittest side going around and that's sort of what got us through finals.
"That year, we had six or seven games finish within nine points - we won every one of them.
"It was just a testament to how fit we were. (Northey) was also big on just winning your one-on-one contests.
"The thing that really stood out with us is that we were a really close side. We had some real characters like Chris Connelly, Jamie Duursma, Earl Spalding.
"Even to the extent that at one stage, Sheedy got a guy for the year to analyse us as a side, what made us tick.
"Just because we meshed together and got the best out of the side, and that was the product of John Northey training us pretty hard."
Melbourne's opponent in the September 24 grand final featured a stable of Hawthorn Football Club legends, many of whom were playing in their sixth straight decider.
"Dunstall, Brereton, Buckenara, Schwab, in their backline they had Mew, Ayres, Platten - they had stars everywhere," Williams said.
"They were an awesome side.
"We didn't have a lot of stars in our side; there was Robbie Fowler, Brian Wilson had won a Brownlow, Peter Moore earlier but he'd gone by then," Williams said.
In front of 93,000 people at the MCG, the first quarter went the way of the Hawks 4.4-28 to 1.5-11.
At half-time, the contest was over.
"There wasn't much in it after quarter time, but then they just blew us out of the water," Williams said.
"We didn't get too many opportunities down forward because the ball didn't come down much. We had to push up the ground a fair bit."
Melbourne faced a 49-point buffer to overcome in the second half but a 12-goals-to-four stanza cemented the Hawks’ 22.20-152 to 6.20-56 victory and their third flag of the 80s.
Williams and Garry Lyon were the Dees’ only multiple goal-kickers on the day with two each, but it could have been more for the GVL legend in what would prove to be his final game for the club.
"I think I kicked 2.4 for the day," Williams said.
"The first one I kicked was probably the hardest shot I had and I missed a couple of sitters.
"We didn't fire a shot on the day which is disappointing, but regardless it's a great experience.
"I think we got the best out of what we had but it was disappointing come grand final day being beaten to the magnitude that we were."
While the 1988 VFL Grand Final doesn't garner much fondness from fans and players alike, the experience of a premiership build-up in Melbourne was one that Williams will never forget.
"You get 10,000 people at training, it's a bit of a buzz," he said.
"Then you have the grand final parade, and it's just a matter of, as John the coach said, soaking it all up and not playing too many games in your head.
"Before the game, you had to toss a coin to decide who came out first. So we came out first, and Hawthorn came out second."
"Just before the bounce, John Northey told us to get together as a group and walk around the MCG, just to soak up the atmosphere with the supporters - especially with how long it had been since we won a flag.
"Didn't do us any good, but it was a magnificent stadium."
In 1988, no-one would have predicted any decider being held in Perth at twilight, let alone that it would be contested by two Victorian clubs.
Nevertheless, Melbourne will have a chance to banish 57 years of heartache on Saturday when the ball is bounced at Optus Stadium.
Williams is backing the current crop of Dees to bring home the flag by as much as three goals if the midfield, serviced by the magnificent Max Gawn, can fire.
He’s also backing some forward line ‘X’ factor from Ben Brown and Tom McDonald, tipping the latter to kick the first goal of the game.
As for the best player on the day? Williams can’t go past the mercurial Clayton Oliver to etch his name into the history books.