Essendon has a win. The Bombers beat Greater Western Sydney by three points at Marvel Stadium on Sunday, 10.7 (67) to 8.16 (64), ending a 12-game losing run and giving caretaker coach Dean Solomon his first victory in his 10th match in charge.
The Bombers had won once in their previous 30 games and had not won in Victoria since May 2025. They led at every change on Sunday, won clearances 45 to 28 behind Zach Merrett's 35 disposals, then twice surrendered the lead in a frantic last quarter. Callum Brown's goal put the Giants in front before Sullivan Robey and Peter Wright answered, and 14,601 people watched the Giants, with 16 behinds on the board, press and miss at the death. "It's a bloody good feeling," Solomon said. "Our footy club's been on its knees for a period of time, and the footy world's jumped on that, and they enjoy us sitting at the bottom." His opposite number Adam Kingsley called the loss "incredibly disappointing", and it came at a price: Toby Greene limped out with a quad injury in the third quarter.
At People First Stadium, Gold Coast's season kept unravelling. The Western Bulldogs trailed by six at half-time, kicked the only five goals of a windy third quarter and held on to win 11.11 (77) to 9.14 (68), the Suns' eighth defeat in a row in front of a home crowd of 14,809. Marcus Bontempelli's three goals from 23 disposals included the sealer early in the last, Matt Kennedy added three of his own, and Tim English took ten marks on return from a back problem.
The Suns won the ball and lost the game. Touk Miller had 39 disposals and nine clearances, Matt Rowell 26 touches and 11 tackles, and coach Damien Hardwick was left explaining the same arithmetic as the previous seven weeks. "The game looks like a Suns game for 80 per cent. For 20 per cent, it comes out of reach," he said. "It's the first time in the history of our organisation we've had a great deal of expectation on us, and we haven't lived up to it. We welcome it. We leant into it. We're going to learn from it." Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge kept it shorter: "To come in at halftime and settle, and then have a third quarter like we did was impressive by the boys."
Sunday's other game was not a contest. Hawthorn put Richmond away by 70 points at the MCG, 18.14 (122) to 6.16 (52), with five goals each to Mitch Lewis and Nick Watson and a milestone for Tom Lynch, whose late major was the 500th of his career. The Hawks finished 101 disposals ahead.
The ladder now has Hawthorn third at 12-5, two points behind Sydney and chasing runaway leader Fremantle at 16-2. The Bulldogs hold seventh at 11-7, and under this year's new finals format, in which the top six advance directly and seventh to tenth play a wildcard round for the last two spots, they are close to locking in a home wildcard game. GWS stays 11th after passing up its chance to jump into tenth. Essendon climbs off the bottom to 17th, dropping Richmond to last on percentage, and Gold Coast sits 14th, a win plus percentage outside the top ten with Carlton away and Melbourne at home to come.
