Melbourne vs Richmond (2009 AFL season)

In round 18, 2009, an Australian Football League home-and-away match was played between and  at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 2 August 2009. The match became controversial for the coaching tactics employed by then-Melbourne coach Dean Bailey, with Melbourne losing to Richmond by four points after Jordan McMahon kicked a match-winning goal for his team after the final siren.

Background
Going into round 18 of the 22-game 2009 AFL season, both and  occupied 16th and 12th places on the ladder, respectively, with neither side considered a mathematical chance of playing finals that year. Earlier in the season, fifth-year Richmond coach Terry Wallace resigned after round eleven, having failed to take the club to the finals during his five-and-a-half year tenure as coach.

This was the second meeting of the two teams during the season, with Melbourne winning by eight points at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in round four.

Final quarter
With less than two minutes remaining in the match, Ricky Petterd kicked a goal on the run to give his side the lead by two points; from the following centre bounce, Ben Cousins drove the Tigers forward before the Demons managed to clear it out of defence, but with forty seconds remaining the Tigers would force the ball forward, and after a scramble in the final seconds, Jordan McMahon would take a mark right on the final siren. McMahon converted to give his side a four-point win, which would ultimately be their last for the season.

Aftermath
The match became central to the AFL's investigation into Melbourne's 2009 season, at the end of which they won the wooden spoon for the second consecutive season under Dean Bailey. During the match, Bailey placed several players in unusual positions; these included placing ruckman Paul Johnson and midfielder James McDonald in the backline; playing forward Brad Miller in the ruck; placing defenders James Frawley and Matthew Warnock in the forward line, as well as leaving Russell Robertson and Colin Sylvia out of the game for Michael Newton and rookie Jake Spencer. The Herald Sun later accused Bailey of making these changes during the match in an attempt to throw the match.

Melbourne would later claim Tom Scully at pick number one, which doubled as a priority draft pick which the club qualified for after winning five or fewer games in each of the previous two seasons. Future co-captain Jack Trengove went at pick number two, while Richmond (which eventually finished second-last) used its first pick, at number three, to recruit future Brownlow Medallist, three-time Norm Smith Medallist and three-time premiership player Dustin Martin.

Though they were ultimately found not guilty of tanking, Melbourne would later be fined $500,000 in early 2013 following the conclusion of the AFL's six-month investigation into the scandal, with several personnel, including Dean Bailey (who by that point had become an assistant coach at ) and Chris Connolly, suspended from their positions for periods of fifteen rounds of the 2013 season and twelve months, respectively.

While Martin would later become central to Richmond's premiership era of dominance between 2017 and 2020, Scully and Trengove later left Melbourne after 31 and 86 games for the club at the end of 2011 and 2017 respectively, with the club failing to make finals during this period.