If there was ever an indication of how much the great game of Australian Rules Football has changed over time, you need not look any further than the 1989 season and an infamous clash between Geelong and Essendon at the MCG. 

It was Round 11, both the Cats and Bombers were in the top four, over 87,000 spectators crammed into the 'G for the Queens Birthday Clash and there were plenty of famous names like Gary Ablett Senior, Tim Watson and Garry Hocking featuring in the match. 

There were storylines everywhere you looked and yet one thing stood out above the rest......... the mud. 

It was unmissable and it covered players from head to toe, some to the point that you could not tell which team they were representing anymore. 

One player that adapted to the conditions brilliantly was Geelong champion, Neville Bruns who joined Cats Media this week to talk through his memories from the game. 

"The 1989 game against the Bombers midseason was an incredible game, because it was so sloppy," Bruns reminisced. 

"The conditions were probably the worst that I played in throughout my whole career, we had a lot of wet grounds in those days but I think there was about six inches of mud. It was almost a case of just trying keep your balance to stay afloat.

"I can remember looking around and you couldn't even recognise half the players, because they had so much mud on them and you couldn't see the jumpers, it didn't even look like blue and white jumpers because they were just black with mud.

"It was really hard to work out who you could give the ball to in the end, I am sure that a lot of us passed it to the wrong player because we couldn't tell who it was. It was an incredible game."

Among the incredible names that lined up for Geelong in their clash against Essendon at the MCG, Bruns was the most experienced with 181 VFL games under his belt. 

Mark Bairstow accumulated a game high 32 disposals, Gary Ablett finished with 22 possessions and two goals, while Garry Hocking and Paul Couch also starred in the difficult conditions. 

But it was Bruns who stood out, receiving three Brownlow votes as he collected 26 disposals to help lead the Cats to a 54 point victory. 

"We probably had a lot of new, emerging stars," Bruns said. 

"'Buddha' from memory had only played 20 odd games, Spiro Malakellis, a name people forget about but a very clever and skilful player. Billy Brownless was still in his youth, even Mark Yeates and Mark Bos who were to champion players of the club.

"Ablett of course, Bairstow was a terrific player and Brownlow Medalist, Paul Couch who played a ripper too. There were some great names and it was great to play alongside them.

"We probably forget just how good that 1989 side was and I was the old man in it at that stage."

Geelong were defiant in the difficult conditions as they cruised to a 54 point win in Round 11, but that was not the last time they would face Essendon in the 1989 season.

Both sides went on the finish in the top four and squared off in a Qualifying Final, with the Bombers remarkably flipping the script and rolling to a huge 76 point victory. The Cats bounced back and won their Semi Final against Melbourne, which then brought them back to the MCG for another clash with Essendon in a Preliminary Final. 

Continuing the unpredictable trend of the season, Geelong cruised to a 94 point win in a stunning 170 point turnaround from a fortnight earlier, capping off an incredible trio of games against Essendon in 1989. 

Bruns remembers that with players like Tim Watson and Michael Long running around for the Bombers, the Cats knew that each contest was going to be a genuine test. 

"They were coming off a pretty famous era of good football and were still a very good side," Bruns said. 

"There were the Daniher's, you also had Long who had only played a dozen or so games at the point, he was new but we knew he was a very slick player. The conditions definitely didn't suit him that day because the next time we played them it was hot and windy, which he was used to and he dominated that game.

"[Paul] Vander Haar was another ripping player, [Kevin] Walsh was an underrated sort of a player. 'Daisy' Williams was a great little player, they were a great side.

"It see-sawed throughout that year, we beat them by 50-odd points in that game, the next time we met them was in a Qualifying Final and they belted us by 13 goals, over a 20 goal turnaround. Then the next time we played them in the Prelim a couple weeks later, we belted them by a lot.

"It was amazing those contests, it felt like whoever got the upper hand just took off and you couldn't catch them."

1989 Round 11 – Geelong v Essendon @ MCG

GEELONG         5.3     8.10     10.13    12.17     (89)
ESSENDON      1.3       3.3       3.5      4.11      (35)

GOALS: Exell 3, Ablett 2, Bews, Couch, G.Hocking, Lindner, Malakellis, Scott, Stoneham 1

DISPOSALS: Bairstow 32, Bruns 26, Couch 25, Bos 23, Ablett, G.Hocking 22

BROWNLOW VOTES: Neville Bruns (3), Mark Bairstow (2), Garry Hocking (1)

CROWD: 87,653 @ MCG

GEELONG STARTING 22
1. Steve Hocking
2. Bruce Lindner
3. Mark Bairstow
5. Gary Ablett
7. Paul Couch
8. Robert Scott
11. Darren Morgan
12. Spiro Malakellis
16. Bill Brownless
17. Gavin Exell
19. Neville Bruns
20. Andrew Rogers
21. Mark Yeates
23. Michael Schulze
24. Mark Bos
26. Barry Stoneham
27. Andrew Bews
28. Tim Darcy
30. Damian Bourke
32. Garry Hocking