Lock you up
5 Likes
5 steps forward, 2 steps back is still a net win which is all you can hope for with a young side. Steady progress with blips along the way.
Zaka and Cutler probably shouldnāt be getting any games but it more poignantly shows our lack of depth than anything else.
Giants are no world beaters but lets not pretend they are a wooden spoon quality side, theyāre about exactly what an 8th placed side looks like. Suspect a few of us have gotten way ahead of ourselves in how good we think we really are.
Am hoping the wheels donāt fall off for the next month, wouldnāt want to be seeing the intensity fall even lower but get the feeling weāve run our race a bit.
3 Likes
Havenāt read the comments, but I thought we lacked the larger body of The Langford and the marking target of Jones. Those two would have helped immensely.
We got beat up around the ball in the second half. Simply as that. They were bigger and went in harder. It was the difference. That took away our speed. The mullets were good, the rest not so much.
2 Likes
Its not an Essendon game without hearing your love for the umps 
1 Like
Ugly & lazy were the first 2 things that come to mind watching that ā ā ā ā display last night.
Hooker looks completely cooked, I get heās the āheart & soulā and all of that, but so many times I seen him down the line standing stagnant with one handful of his opponents jumper and the other hand pointing to where he wants the ball. That stuff hardly works in country footy reserves let alone at this levelā¦ It makes no sense ? he canāt jump and continually gets beaten to the contest and muscled out. Should he not stick to what was working earlier in the year and leading up the ground and clunking them out in front ?
Cutler, Zaka, Ham - Same 3 names brought up just about every time they play. Why the ā ā ā ā do we drop Guelfi for the likes of any of them blokes. Hell, I would bring Gleeson back over all 3 of them also.
VS Sydney, would love to see Bryan in for Hooker (at this point, what have we got to lose ?), And take your pick out of Langford, Guelfi, Clarke or even Gleeson to replace the rest of the passengers. Please Franga, come back to us.
2 Likes
Early picks are great but after the bonanza we snagged last season with both Perkins and Cox playing well yesterday in what was a heavily impacted draft year I am backing us to get another elite prospect in. We were nowhere near poor enough to get one of those top couple of picks this season.
Essendon in round 6 against a bottom four side
Verse
Essendon when there is something remotely on the line
6 Likes
I think sheil was OK but guelfi and waterman were stiff. I canāt see how playing waterman in the vfl advances his improvement. I think he will stay in the team so he should be treated as a rookie and get as many games into him this year as possible.
Dunno. I reckon teams get short runs against us but never seem to truly dominate whole games against us.
I reckon itāll be a relatively close (and by close I mean 4-5 goals) affair
3 Likes
I think the Dogs have already had more of their fair share of āBomber beltingsā in the last 6-7 years.
Whilst I canāt see us beating them, hopefully this one can be a little closer than previous meetings.
After last night though, things do have the potential to go off the rails for us. Hopefully it doesnāt come to that.
1 Like
ā ā ā ā ground, away from home for the zillionth time this seasonā¦ bring in Shiel underdoneā¦ zaka as useless as he was last time he playedā¦ Hooker is not even close to up to itā¦ Walla looks like he needs a rest.
The signs were there last weekā¦ but looked VERY similar to last yearā¦ is there a chance our boys donāt like hub life?!!
All excuses asideā¦ we are still looking at a positive season but yesterday was a shocker after half timeā¦ and teams have well and truly worked out how to play ākeepings offā and take our pressure out of the game. Truck will need to come up with plan B by next season.
3 Likes
The positive from yesterday is that the game exposed the players that are not good enough or those who their best is way gone.
2 Likes
Well that was ā ā ā ā
A lot of the time they just prayed on us winning the ball in tight then picking off the hand ball/ player not letting it get to the outsideā¦.we were diabolical there werenāt much better !
Yes, development yearā¦ blah, blah, blah BUT one of the non negotiableās must be defending at all costs for this āblue collarā team. Farkān ādepressingā seeing teams waltz up and down the field, doing as they please. All the early season gains are vaporising before our eyes. In the blink of an eye, Essendon find themselves back at the bad old hub days of ā20. So, so depressing.
On SEN Watson was so annoyed with Essendonās lack of defensive intent and their unwillingness to tag Whitfield, the architect in GWSās win. He said, before Essendon could consider themselves a contending team they need to work out how to take away the oppositions strengths, like GWS did against Merrett, Parish and Hind. Fark me dead, they couldnāt even nullify the one element destroying any chance Essendon had of winning that game.
The thing about the second halfā¦ felt like the team lacked belief. They were going through the motions and when Stringer fails to score taking a set shot from inside 50 only reinforces the point. If Essendon are on Jake nails that shot.
What I donāt understand is the stark contrast from the 2 halves? Playing with belief/purpose/system, to all structures and intent collapsing literally in the space of minutes. As others pointed out, the leaders failed to leadā¦
And make no mistake, play this game in Melbourne Essendonās chances of winning improve by 30%. Itās the way Essendon lost this game that hurts the most.
4 Likes
A poster on BF said we have out played our draft position about 8-10 times in the past 15 years and I sort of agree with them.
Weāre doing it again, weād be better placed to finish 14th but weāll fight and finish 9th instead.
I thought it was a very interesting and valid point.
3 Likes
At least I donāt bag our players like many do. I just give credit where it is due.
1 Like
First of all Iāll say I havenāt read all of the reviews so apologies if this is just rehashing whatās been said.
Very frustrating to watch GWS peel off to the fat side (usually 3 of them) & no one was was accountable to this. We were then left scrambling to chase them after the switch had been made.
They tagged Parish (in blocks when their best midfield team is not at the bounce. Ash sat on Parish often) & Tippa (who I reckon is carrying something). We needed to do the same to Whitfield at least & to work on better strategies when blocks are being applied to our guys.
Their harder bodies held up better in the contest & their laser like passes just pierced through our zone far too easily. They worked harder & ran harder than us.
We did not work hard enough to provide options for the ball holder. Way too many long kicks to large packs.
Good points:
Laverde is a star down back. Ridley too. The backline was put under heaps of pressure & can hold their heads high.
Durham had another good game. Plenty of promise. Works hard & skills are good.
2MP impacted the game well - just let down by inaccuracies.
Merret as usual busted his gut.
We do have a promising future but I reckon weāre running out of puff now.
11 Likes
Coniglio, Greene, Hill? a cooked Deboer?
Langford, McGrath, Caldwell and Jones also Francis and Hurley.
Not sure their outs outweigh ours?
1 Like
Yeah I think their midfield quality and fact batted so deep with was the deciding factor
We barely had a winner in midfield with Parish well held cutting us off at source really.
We need closer to our full complement of mids back & in form (Shiel wasnt) in order to take it up to these teams with very strong midfield groups
If we had McGrath, a firing Shiel, Langford & Caldwell all available would have been different
Coniglio probably hasnāt been in their best midfield for a while and Ash did the job De Boer would have done on Parish probably anyway.
Lack of fwd pressure is hurting us as well. Tippa has to be playing hurt and Snelling is being needed higher up the ground. Zaka playing in place of Guelfi didnāt improve on that either. We need Moz!
1 Like