Watson details Essendon injury woes and subsequent struggles
By Andrew Slevison
Tim Watson acknowledges that the personnel missing from the Essendon team right now is having a detrimental effect on how they are playing.
The Bombers took a side with the least experience (67.2 average games) across the competition and the third youngest group with an average age of 24 years and eight months into Sunday’s meeting wth St Kilda.
The result for the John Worsfold and Ben Rutten-coached outfit was a 35-point defeat with yet another low score of just 33 which was their fourth score of under 60 in their past six outings.
Players currently sidelined include Jake Stringer, Dyson Heppell, Joe Daniher, Cale Hooker, David Zaharakis, Orazio Fantasia, Patrick Ambrose and Jayden Laverde which has a dramatic impact on the overall quality of the starting 22.
The long injury list has forced Essendon to play with a patchwork forward line consisting of the likes of Jacob Townsend, Shaun McKernan, Kyle Langford, James Stewart, Josh Begley, Will Snelling and Conor McKenna and that in turn has impacted how the midfielders are delivering the ball, according to Watson.
“I think you’ve got to be balanced when you criticise a team,” the former Bombers skipper said on SEN Breakfast .
“They had 12 players out who would be in their team or around about in their team. They did have a lot of injured players.
“They still have a forward line which is dysfunctional. It looked like they needed to play an extra player in their defence which gave St Kilda an extra player in their forward line which made it even more difficult in the forward line.
“It appeared when players were going forward they looked up and there was nothing to kick to so they just held onto the ball and then it became an even greater problem for them. When they did kick it in, a lot of the time it was intercept marked.
“If you had all their players to pick from, including Joe Daniher. If you put Daniher and Stringer into that forward line, straight away it’s a massive difference. Stringer is a game-winning player.
“The mids are ok, they probably need a little more depth in the midfield. They need an inside beast in there.
“Their back line looked brittle yesterday as well, but Cale Hooker is still out of that team.”
Watson dived a little deeper into Essendon’s issues at present, with their game style under Worsfold and Ben Rutten not as distinguishable as they perhaps would like it to be.
“I think what’s happened there with Essendon is there has been an over-correction,” he added.
“We talk about it all the time about how they play on the pace but then they are susceptible to turnovers.
“I think they’ve tried to correct it and they over-correct it, which a lot of clubs do, and they over-compensated for that build-up behind the ball. They slowed the ball movement down which is against the natural instincts of the way they have been playing.
“Their mids got plenty of the ball but they didn’t go anywhere. Their key four midfielders - (Dylan) Shiel, (Andrew) McGrath, (Darcy) Parish and (Zach) Merrett - between them had 49 kicks and 56 handballs. Now they’re not handballs that are going anywhere. Those handballs were often just sharing the pressure amongst that group.
“I thought they had an advantage in that area and they needed to back that midfield to be able to win enough ball to actually give their forward line an opportunity to kick a score.
“Right now, what are they doing? I think they are trying to do a lot of different things but they are not doing them well and they’re not cohesive in any way.”
In conclusion, Watson feels that Essendon’s list with all players at full strength is still only one that will be competitive and not genuinely contend.
“I think they are ok without challenging for the flag but I think people become impatient over a period of time,” he said further.
“John Worsfold has done a lot of really good things in the time that he’s been there but he hasn’t been able to establish a pattern of play that is going to be sustainable.”
The loss on the weekend was Essendon’s third in their last four outings, extending their winless run to four matches. They sit 11th on the ladder on 22 points ahead of Saturday’s clash with Richmond in Darwin.
