Essendon has had plenty of bigger crowds at Marvel Stadium than the 37,295 who turned up late on Saturday afternoon for the game against Greater Western Sydney. It's doubtful, however, whether the Bombers have had many louder.
Yes, the one-sided nature of the turnout, the Giants with few fans in attendance, may have had a little to do with that. But the Dons have had other good wins over GWS which didn't push the sound meter nearly so high.
No, this was different. Like a whole club's support base collectively thinking that, unlike the many other false dawns for Essendon over recent years, this time it was for real. And as though the sustained roar in the minute between every Bomber goal and the next centre bounce was those fans daring to dream that their club really was back as a force to be reckoned with.
I'm sure I'm not the only critic who didn't think that was possible five weeks ago after Essendon was dismantled by Port Adelaide.
Indeed, even before Saturday's game I felt the Bombers' ladder position was something of a false economy, their percentage poor, their rankings for points for and against just ninth and 12th respectively. But it's the way Essendon continues to win as much as the victories themselves which suggest there's something quite different about this group's DNA.
None of the Dons' six wins this season has been completely smooth sailing, each time being challenged at some point.
Against the Giants, they were three goals down early in the second half. Up against the team third on the ladder and coming off a tough road trip to Perth, that would probably have been enough justification for previous versions of this team to turn up their toes. But this year's model just continues to grit its teeth and diligently work away at the task.
And on Saturday, that produced a six-goals-plus turnaround and the holding of the Giants, the AFL's second-heaviest scoring team, to their lowest tally of the season.
It's that mental fortitude that is the single biggest reason the red-and-black army has again found its voice. And in that regard, several good judges have agreed recently that this is a team beginning to reflect the playing persona of its coach Brad Scott.
Three players best symbolise that, and they are three midfielders who have become pivotal to Essendon's fortunes, Sam Durham, Jye Caldwell and Archie Perkins, the latter of whom had been out injured for a month but whose addition to the centre square mix against the Giants took the Dons' engine room up a cog again.
That doesn't mean they have Scott the player's outward aggression and antagonism. But they do have his hardness at the ball and mental strength to keep pushing from contest to contest. It's a level of hunger Essendon has so often lacked over the past couple of decades even when it has been on a roll.
But there isn't a Bomber supporter who won't have been more than happy to trade in some enigmatic occasional brilliance in favour of a sometimes more dour but far more dependable game style.
And that much better balance between attack and defence has become more obvious since the Port Adelaide disaster, which now appears to have been an aberration, not the norm.
The numbers say that since the Round 4 smashing at the hands of the Power, Essendon has climbed from 11th in fewest points conceded to sixth. Its inside 50 differential ranking has gone from 15th to eighth, its contested ball differential ranking ninth to fifth, and its time in forward half rating from 14th to ninth.
What does that all mean? That those defensive qualities and harder attitudes are in more conspicuous view all across the ground, not just in the back 50, as good as that department has been of late.
While Essendon is very much looking forward to the returns of key defensive pair Jordan Ridley and Zach Reid, the latter of whom got through his VFL comeback unscathed on Saturday, the likes of Ben McKay and Jayden Laverde have held up very well, while, Andy McGrath, Nic Martin and Dyson Heppell have attacked and defended in the right measures, developing some real chemistry with the pure negators.
The influence of Durham, Caldwell and Perkins midfield on those improvements in clearance and contested ball speaks for itself in the numbers.
And the Bombers are also finding more defensive qualities in attack, too, where Jade Gresham's ground level pressure is proving important, and where Matt Guelfi's defensive forward role has been critical to the last two wins.
Against the Giants, Guelfi's shutting down of GWS springboard Lachie Whitfield and his three goals, along with the ever-reliable Kyle Langford's four-goal haul, were probably the difference between the two sides.
It is a rare Essendon victory indeed in which either skipper Zach Merrett, the prolific Darcy Parish or both aren't among the best two or three on the ground, but while Merrett in particular was still good, that was the case in this win. That's another good sign.
No self-respecting Bomber will be getting ahead of themselves even at this point, mind you. The scars of entrenched mediocrity and disappointment spanning two decades run deep.
Even this week's clash with the winless North Melbourne will be seen by many of the faithful as a potential "banana peel" game, the sort in which in the past the Dons' hardest work has been spoiled with a listless or lazy follow-up.
But that in itself represents a challenge of sorts. And reassuringly for Scott and co., let alone the supporters, in 2024 challenges are things to which the Bombers simply keep responding. That really is something worth shouting about.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY