Also Bryan looked really good, agile for a ruck, could play CHB in time
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Always the bridesmaid, never McBride.
Who was No.42 please ?
Ham was great in the first half.
Second half he missed kicks, dropped marks and carlton players broke his tackles.
Tale of two halves.
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Waterman
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Iām satisfied with that hitout. Clearly our defensive running needs to improve, we just couldnāt get back fast enough. This has to do with offensive structure as well, when we moved forward we overcommitted, so if/when we turned it over we werenāt in position to zone.
That was as young an Essendon team as I can remember, and it was the younger players who excited the most. Jones, Cox, Perkins can all play. Archieās steps through traffic were sublime. Yes he got caught a couple of times but remember he hasnāt even played VFL yet. Talk about ramping up the pace. Same with Cox.
And Waterman, what a revelation!
Downsides were 2MP and Cutler, as well as the form of Heppell and Hooker. Iām not worried about Heppell/Hooker, who can both play, but not sure the other two will get a run. Surely a Gown or a Jok would be better value on the list.
Bring on the Cats. I know we wonāt win but Iām just looking for continued improvement.
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If thatās how you view 2MP i think he will surprise you this year.
I only caught the first half
I thought it seemed as though Blues far too easily moved the ball downfield retaining footy with kicks. And only due to some of their poor entries inside 50 were we able to stay with them.
Big periods of them on top but not capitalising. Against better sides they will do so against us.
Havenāt read the thread but Iām sure others probably werenāt happy with our full ground defence and the ease of the opposition transition
Our own ball use however never had the fluency and efficiency Blues often had
Yes we were able to reel them back to even scores essentially at half time which was a plus but even so weāve got plentyyyyyy to work on. Would want to improve a lot on that.
In saying that definitely a lot to like from some individual players. Need to be playing as a team however.
Nothing but positives out of today. We are a side in complete rebuild mode that could really benefit from being at the pointy end of the draft for a couple of years. Not only did the result didnāt matter at all today, nor did our structures, defence in transition or squat.
All that we were meant to get out of today is learn if our young players are going to be serious players in a few years time and boy did we learn that. All of Cox, Caldwell, Perkins, Hind and Jones all clearly showed they will be players for us, on top of players like Ham and Cahill showing significant improvement from last year. We also saw Smith return to his best, Heppell actually played, and Tippa moved well.
Absolutely perfect day for the club. Couldnāt give a rats ā ā ā ā about anything else for the year
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Hmmmā¦ beefier hamā¦
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Community Service Announcement:
Bloodstained Devils, regular contributor here and supplier of coffee to preseason get togethers wants to watch a replay but doesnāt want spoilers. So he canāt come to Blitz and he canāt go to the efc site. If anyone has a link to a replay, DM him the link but donāt mention the result, heād appreciate that.
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Depends how he pulls up.
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Ham is not a particularly intelligent footballer. Heās very much a watered down version of Stephen Hill. Decent left foot, quick enough, but his decision making and execution leave a lot to be desired at times. He kicked a great goal from 50m, set shot, dobbed it easily. He also gets involved with good pieces of play, but there was one in the 3rd term when he had the ball, all he needs is to dish off the handball to Langford I think it was, misses the target, turnover, Carlton goal. There is something there to persist with, itās just whether that potential will be realised or whether he will be a ānearly but not quiteā player.
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Iāll get ABC radio to read out the Web link letter by letter. Thatās the sure fire way to reach him. Tell him to get his pen and paper ready.
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I dontā know whether itās personal who are the culprits or the plan itself.
when they went coast to coast it was eerily similar to patches of play from last year (even back to the pre season games last year when we won the games).
the problem is, again whether itās specific personal or poorly planned is that it holds up pretty well for large chunks of games/qtrs.
But boy like i said in my own post, when it breaks down, it breaks down completely, across the board.
and it only needs to happen 10 or so times a game to keep teams in the game.
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I hope heāll be the player I think he can be, but he needs to improve his physicality in contests. Iām not writing him off yet, but Iām also not going to be losing it if he performs at an average level simply because I know we have other players coming through as well. Heāll need to earn his place in the side.
They sent an email with the link to the stream
ā¦along with Nino weāve rediscovered our two pronged Essendon attack!
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and it can stay broken for a whole quarter or more resulting in a run of unanswered goals.
Need to have a plan to stop the run ons. Whether that means we lock it down or man up one on one - whatever it is they need a good system to activate.
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Donāt think we are in complete rebuild mode
Full rebuild mode is not having any players over the age of 25 with majority of the 22 made up of 18 year olds
We still have have far too many senior players in the 26/27 age group that make up majority of the team