Bizarre game.
Felt like we got flogged.
Some glaring issues in the kick down the line being marked again and again.
If JD kicks those goals, Saad isn’t penalised (ump hadn’t called play on) and maybe Merrett gets a 50 instead of kick to Moz. There would’ve been enough scoreboard pressure to keep them honest.
Instead we let them get it out too easy, red time goals, and missed easy shots.
That one was really frustrating for mine. Handball madness into pressure. Cant kick goals to save ourselves. Upset about mcgraths injury. Sucks just another season wasted and that seals another 365 days onto the essendon finals hiatus.
Nothing from Stringer or Hooker tonight.
I lost interest in the second quarter and only occasionally bothered to check scores after that.
Everything I love about this sport is currently absent. The games are boring, the atmosphere is dead, the commentary is unlistenable, and there’s no social aspect.
Combine this with being on a Tuesday night with no free-to-air TV and I wonder how anyone can consume this product as it currently goes.
tactically we failed at the first bounce with gleeson on ryan…
Happy clappers in 2020:
Pre-season - Essendon to finish top 4
About Round 6 - surely top 4
About Round 10. - but we have a game in hand
Now - we showed that we can COMPETE against a top team.
Sigh.
McG stays on we win, which is sad, because we also could have won without him
Classic essington game
Got the impression we never REALLY worried them.
Gleeson can go after tonight, seen enough. Hurls looked indecisive
Don’t worry mate, by Sunday you’ll have everybody here saying that we’ll win against the Cats. Laughable.
Saad is missing another running defender
Remove the handball at all costs and slow play, and this side can match it with everyone.
We almost completely shut down West Coasts offensive game in the second half. The issue was not taking our opportunities up forward when we had them, not slowing West Coast down for an entire half
A small part of me is glad. We were never making the finals. Can relax a bit more and look forward to the draft.
We actually won the second half by 1 point. Amazing seeing how we couldnt kick straight at all.
Desperately need to clean up forward entries… christ.
Don’t ever look at the possessions on our team sheet a game,and be fooled into thinking they necessarily got alot of the ball.
I wonder if you take put those dinky 30cm handballs,what the stats would be.
If you cant handballnto a man in a better position,kick it boundary side without it being deliberate.
Building
I said they picked us apart with ease when they needed to & they clear as day did that.
Langford and Parish played ripper last quarters like they usually do, but why does it take them so long to get involved? Players like that need to be switched on from the get go.
Getting destroyed in the air against them (again)
Butchering the ball inside 50 (again)
Kicking for goal woeful (again)
This team is a 6-12 talent team getting 13-18 results because we can’t do those basics well.
The problem is the club think we’re a 1-6 team getting 6-12 results and if we fix the above we’ll be top four.
The talent level ain’t good enough even if we tidy those things up.
8 players didn’t register a tackle and six with just 1. 14 players, nearly two-thirds of the team, registered one tackle or no tackle. That is ■■■■■■■ unacceptable. Especially when you consider that one is the captain, the bloke who is supposed to set the standards. Zero tackles. It shows a lack of work rate and a lack of application. It takes no talent to work hard and apply defensive pressure.
Now to the skills. Woeful going forward, the amount of times we hack kicked it forward blindly to the best intercept marking player in the AFL. Braindead footballers. And then when we finally get a chance to kick a goal we screw it up. Joey definitely didn’t have the kicking boots on today. Mentally he doesn’t know what to do when he gets a set shot. Should have had 3 goals. But I guess the biggest plus is he got through the game without any fresh injury concerns.
Best for me was Walla. The only bloke I trust 100% when he kicks at goal. Langford was excellent. Ridley great again. Saad, Parish has good games. Draper put in a credible performance in the ruck and didn’t take a backward step to Nic Nat. We had a golden opportunity tonight and blew it, and the wounds were self-inflicted.
