Since I don’t think anyone has bothered to post the basics:
MELBOURNE 0.3 3.4 3.6 4.8 (32)
ESSENDON 4.2 6.3 10.5 16.10 (106)
GOALS
Melbourne: Rivers, McCaffrey (VFL), Briggs (VFL), White (VFL)
Essendon: Laverde 3, Zaharakis 2, Cutler 2, Fantasia 2, Landt (VFL) 2, Ham, Jones, Snelling, Begley, Teakle (potential SSP rookie)
Epic is in word I guess you could use for it.
Blitz match day is a bit of a laugh. A lot of shoutin, not listening/conversation.
OK all. The entire game is up on my Youtube channel.
Thoughts on the game:
Ham works ■■■■■■ hard and oozes class. I’ve been a fan since he was drafted and I can see him playing a wing regularly.
Francis was very vocal in the first half while Gleeson seemed to get more vocal in the second half, particularly when I noticed him helping Teakle find his man as he was often a bit lost.
Parish looks inboard very often and actually finds targets in the corridor.
Bryan follows up at ground level well. I think he has a lot of upside and seems like a good pickup.
Jones looks very promising. He didn’t kick a bag but he presented reasonably well and pressured well across half forward for a bigger guy.
McBride looked good in his first game. He didn’t really do anything bad but there were times that he looked confused about what to do with the ball in his hands. I’m just not sure he will develop that sense of urgency within 12 months of touching the game of AFL which is why I’m not at all expecting him to play seniors unless injury forces that hand.
Begley looked terrible today. Constantly out of position and giving up advantage to his opposition. I’m just not sure he is as flexible position wise as everyone seems to think he is. He looks okay when he’s deep in the forward line, but we are really stacked for talent of his size.
Ambrose injury doesn’t at all look like the left knee impact to the ground to me. 9:00 in the first quarter it appears as if he knees the hip of a Demons player before he clutches at his right knee after the fall.
Laverde was clunking marks and kicking goals - what more can you ask for? He’s a forward that holds defenders accountable. 6 shots at goal is a pretty honest showing nomatter the opponent. Coaches won’t be prepared to let him run around on a lesser defender too often.
I’m sure there’s more to comment on but they’re just a few thoughts that have stuck overnight.
As always, these sorts of matches bring out various opinions on how good or bad we may have been. I like to think of it as a nice cobweb blowout for almost our entire younger brigade. There were a lot of promising signs for most players on the ground. It’s good when you can sit here as a fan and argue with 20 different people about 20 different legitimate best 22 teams on paper. It’s a good problem to have when your best 20-30 players are fighting week in week out for a regular senior spot.
As for the Nigel / Teakle debate?
Both showed some promising signs. Both made some blunders. Nigel looked nervous as per training reports in recent weeks. I wonder if this is something that can be cured long term? Ask yourself if you would want him playing with those nerves infront of 100k at the MCG for a final? He does have a really nice deft touch off the boot and hes very athletic, so the upside is enormous if he can figure that out.
Teakle appared to need a great deal of on ground coaching from other players in regard to positioning and matchups whenever he was not playing ruck. I think he is still a fair way off development wise, whereas Lockyer seems like he has a higher chance to impact immediately as a half forward. His addition would also have other psuedo forwards like Begley on notice.
What experience do I have? Not a great deal, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Awesome effort and very much appreciated. Look forward to watching the game later tonight.
I’ve just gotta ask, … how the hell did you record 20,000 minutes of the 1st qtr?? 
… 
Apparently we now have a "high pressure game style"
Wot Melbourne said: in their game review.
The Bombers took early control of the game, …restricting Melbourne’s ball movement with a high pressure game style.
Jayden Hunt, Oskar Baker, Marty ■■■■, Josh Wagner, Toby Bedford, James Jordon, Trent Rivers and Austin Bradtke were Melbourne’s representatives in the match, with VFL players making up the remainder of the squad. Corey Wagner also got involved in the match as Melbourne’s runner.
While playing as Melbourne and wearing Melbourne jumpers, the line-up had a strong Casey Demons influence with VFL senior coach Sam Radford taking charge of the side for the day.
Essendon also took the opportunity to mix up their line-up, giving limited minutes to the likes of Andrew McGrath, Darcy Parrish and David Zaharakis, while selecting two triallists who are training with their squad.
The Bombers took early control of the game, kicking four goals to none in the first half and restricting Melbourne’s ball movement with a high pressure game style.
Melbourne managed to bounce back in the second term, kicking three goals to Essendon’s two.
VFL players Tom McCaffrey, Jaxon Briggs and Mitch White slotted the second quarter majors for the Demons.
Jayden Hunt and Marty ■■■■ were also solid contributors in the first two quarters, before being rested in the second half.
I never get bored of Marty ■■■■.
Filtering a typo is silly.
I wasn’t at the game, but you seem to have written a good, balanced report of what you observed and what you perceived. Much appreciated. Thank you.
One thing that I noticed between the training before Christmas last year and today’s game is the midfielders are much sharper. They seem to know their positioning better and seem to understand each others games more too.
Langford and McGrath in particular were very much in sync.
Clarke, Parish and Langford also were like clockwork. They just knew where each other were.
Can’t wait to see more of this group develop.
Cause he didn’t play the first half 
It won’t be just in the media.
Include Stringer in that scenario
Serious is it’s JLT
Nothing more but kids bring experimented and getting run in the legs and testing game plans nothing more.
Results mean nothing either way
Apologies if I missed it somewhere but is Phillips injured?
Saved for WCE
It take a brave person to mention Jayden and Hammy in the same sentence.
Excellent tactical observation. Thanks.
With Russian as his ruck coach and with Bellchambers, Phillips and Draper his sparring partners, he’ll pick up the nuances of contested ruck work very quickly and when he eventually fills out he may even give Draper a run for his money.
I couldn’t care less about this game, but Ambrose out for half the season means we lost.
Agree. I hate these pre-season games.