Round 12 - Melbourne v Essendon
Pre Match
• With just 6 days to prepare after the big Queen’s Birthday game it would be a challenge both mentally and physically for our players. Another test of our maturity as a group.
• Essendon may be at the bottom of the ladder but with the inclusion of Hird, Watson, Bradley & Camporeale this would be the best team they have fielded for a while. I warned our players on Friday that the Bombers aren’t the young and inexperienced team that they would have you believe. With premiership players such as Hird, Mark & Jason Johnson, Lucas, Solomon, Heffernan, Camporeale and other experienced campaigners such as McVeigh, McPhee, Peverill, Bolton, & Hille running around it would be fair to say that if they got their confidence up they could prove difficult to beat. For this reason we put a strong emphasis on getting away to a good start in the hope that we didn’t allow their spirit & optimism to rise to dangerous levels.
• Whelan & Col Sylvia were included in the team at the expense of Daniel Bell & Simon Godfrey.
• In the absence of Fletcher we expected Essendon to flood back quite heavily so our ball use going forward would need to be intelligent.
During the Game:
• Started poorly. We were reactionary, second to the ball and lacked run & intensity. Essendon were all over us and had they kicked straight we could have faced a significant deficit at quarter time. As it turned out they let us off the hook and we only trailed by 5 points. Our ball use going forward was ordinary, our tackles were being broken and we looked off the boil.
• Challenged the team for a lift in work rate at quarter time.
• There was some improvement in the second quarter and we could sense that Essendon’s intensity was dropping away slightly. We won the quarter by 6 points to hold a one point lead at half time. During the second quarter David Neitz really worked hard to lift the team with some of his efforts inspirational. His second and third efforts to pressure Peverill created a miskick which Robbo marked to slot through his 3rd goal.
• At half time we talked about the fact that we had not played up to the standard that we expect of ourselves but despite this we held a lead. The message was that if we could take our game up another notch in effort & intensity then we might be able to break the contest open.
• The lift we talked about materialised in the 3rd quarter. Our leaders really showed the way with Neita, Travis, Brucey & Greeny winning a good share of the ball and influencing the outcome. Our pressure on the Bombers forced them into error and we started to run hard through the lines. Seven goals to three was a good result and by ¾ time we had decent control over the game. Matty Whelan was also able to put the clamp on the dangerous Monfries which helped significantly.
• Looking for more of the same in the final quarter. We scored the first 3 goals which stretched our lead to 44 points. From this point on our run and intensity dropped away a bit and this was disappointing as a 10 goal win was a possibility had we been able to maintain our work rate. We allowed the Bombers 3 late goals and when the siren sounded had secured a relatively unimpressive 6 goal victory.
Post Match:
• Pleased to get the win as this was potentially a dangerous match following the big occasion games we have been involved in over the past month.
• Not pleased with the way that we played. An opponent in better form than the Dons may have found us out.
• Our team leaders stood up when it counted and helped us over the line. This is a good sign.
• Our tall backs – Holland, Rivers & Carroll did an excellent job all game.
• We showed maturity in that we were able to improve our effort well enough throughout the game to get across the line. Having said that it was disappointing that we weren’t as ready to play as we should have been.
• We now have a 13 day turnaround before we play the in form Port Power at the MCG. We will take the opportunity to freshen up and refocus for the next phase of the season. Our theme all year has been to focus on improving as a team. We expect this to remain the same for the weeks ahead. We have worked hard after a poor start to get ourselves into a position to challenge for a top four position. We are proud of the team for the resilience and belief they have shown and look forward to more of the same when we resume hostilities in two weeks time.
