In inclined to bring in Stewart as the ruck backup for Belly. Didn’t like stringer being the other ruck.
Move stringer to a more midfield game this week. Lockdown hard on bruest and Mitchell.
Hepp to go to Mitchell.
Langers on OMeara who is finding form.
Watch francis give Clarkson a heart attack from all the intercepts. Clarkson is a big fan of Francis.
What about after those 4 ?
Edit. And, Belly v Ceglar
amateur.
Poppy ■■■■■■■ Puopolo and that smarmy ■■■■ Isaac Smith have two of the most hateful heads in the competition!
■■■■ Thugthorn! ■■■■■■■ family club. Smug ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■!
Hawthorn’s formline since the bye
Beat Adelaide
Beat GC
Lost to GWS
Beat Dogs
Lost to Lions
Beat Carlton
Beat Freo
IMO they are nothing to write home about. Very efficient forward line, Tom Mitchell, not much else.
They do play the G substantially better than us. But they’re not that good a side.
Worsfold’s presser from today. tweets and EFC website
Essendon’s season is essentially on the line against Hawthorn on Saturday, but coach John Worsfold isn’t viewing the game as a ‘knockout final’.
The Bombers have got themselves back into top-eight contention with eight wins from their past 10 games, but may need to win their last four games – against Hawthorn, St Kilda, Richmond and Port Adelaide (away) – to make it.
Worsfold took the Bombers to the finals last year for the first time since 2014, but said he wasn’t focused on whether a loss against the Hawks would end their top-eight hopes.
“I haven’t really thought about it in that regard,” Worsfold said on Monday.
"All I’ve thought about it in the last six to eight weeks is, are we going to maintain the style of footy we’ve been playing? Are we going to keep improving and see it again each weekend?’ That’s been my focus.
“I haven’t really looked at the ladder or thought about what each game means. I do know we don’t have much room for error in terms of losing games, but why worry about that when that will take care of itself?”
The Bombers were in the midst of their poor start to the season when they last met the Hawks in round seven and lost by 23 points.
The next week they took on Carlton and fell to the Blues, but have only lost to Richmond and Collingwood since then as they make their charge to the finals.
The Hawks are also battling for a finals position and comfortably beat Fremantle by 59 points at Optus Stadium on Sunday.
“I did watch the game yesterday. The Hawks are going pretty well, they’re in good form,” Worsfold said.
“Their wins are generally big wins, but for us we want to maintain the type of footy we’ve been playing and see how it matches up against another good team.”
Matt Dea (concussion) and Kyle Langford (whiplash) are expected to be available for the Hawks clash after their knocks in the win over the Swans. Dea was running laps at Essendon’s Tullamarine base on Monday morning.
Joe Daniher hasn’t played since round eight as he nurses his osteitis pubis injury.
“He’s miles off being available yet, and when I say ‘miles off’, he won’t play in the next couple of weeks,” Worsfold said.
“He’s just tracking on a program that would see him potentially available for the last round or two. If anything delays him, we won’t cut corners to get him up.”
The coach said if the Bombers lose to the Hawks they wouldn’t rule Daniher out for the rest of the season, and that even if they were out of finals contention they would consider playing the star goalkicker.
Can’t wait for Saturday. Hope there’s a huge Bomber contingent there. Let’s outnumber the part-time Tasmanians in the stands and blow the ■■■■■ off the ‘G. Saady, Connor and Walla to give them windburn!
Flat track bullies. Beat poor or average opponents well. See Port Adelaide.
We should do a number on them.
If we win by around 150-180 points we should jump them on the ladder.
Our biggest win against them was by 107 points.
Round: 12 at Windy Hill on Sat, 22-Jul-1944.
Ess 19.18.132. vs Hawthorn 3.7. 25
AN10 described it as a very good win.
Disagree. If we knock off the next 2 on hawks and saints we will only need to win one of our last 2 at most to make it, regardless of results.
However I agree that we need to disregard 2018 finals this year and work at building this team to get beyond week 1 of finals.
Good comments. Didnt say rubbish like “I haven’t looked at the ladder” just said he knows there isnt much room to move and if it happens it happens
True, but they have beaten those team quite easily. If they were struggling to beat them then you could argue their isnt that good.
Nine changes for mo.
True. But our 4 mids
Hep
Merret
Zaharakis
Smith
That’s pretty decent too
as good as. Best defensive player in the comp. Very good inside/outside runner. Two excellent clearance players.
Outside those 4, our depth right across the ground is far superior.
We still haven’t completely clicked yet. Would love to embarrass these ■■■■■.
Our fwd structure has been drastically affected over the past few weeks. We’d be having Smack providing contest and he’s out.
I do wonder if they will consider a 3rd tall to avoid having the opposition 3rd intercepting at will.
Also early in game when opposition pressure is strong it’s not so easy to just have hit up options. And also the ball carrier being pressured more so long high entries are going to happen.
Defensively we’re on point. Set aside the two 100 point games (one loss to the reigning premiers and one shootout win) and we’re averaging about 65 points against over the last 10 weeks. It’s the transition and ball movement that occasionally slips and we gift the ball back in back half or going long inside 50. At some point that’s gonna line up for a whole game and we’re tune somebody up. Hopefully it’s Saturday.
I very much dislike this collection of people who call themselves the Hawks. I hope we dispatch of them in the necessary fashion, aggressively.
Essendon cannot afford to gift Hawthorn time and space. Pressure for 4 quarters please boys …