Adelaide vs Essendon: AFL live scores

 

Roar Guru

By The Roar, 5 Aug 2012

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 Adelaide Crows, AFL, Essendon Bombers, live blog

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There’s plenty on the line for Essendon who still aren’t assured of a spot in the final eight. They hit the road to take on a strong Adelaide at AAMI Stadium. Live scores coming up from 4.40pm AEST.

The Crows hit a road bump last week when they went down to Geelong at Simonds Stadium.

While Essendon is in somewhat of a free fall with two very heavy losses to premiership contenders in the last fortnight.

Adelaide missed no having Sam Jacobs in their line up last week, pulling out late with hamstring soreness. He’s been included for today’s game and this will help around the ground.

The Crows home record this year has been quite remarkable, only losing to Collingwood. And it’s not just the wins, because they’ve had some big margins to boot, including their demolition of West Coast a couple of weeks ago.

Taylor Walker is expected to go better this week. He was off-target last week after a three week break through suspension. The game time last week would have done him the world of good, and being at home will help him settle well.

Essendon need to find a way to stop the rot. The quick start they had this season has whittled away and look sluggish at best.

While Jobe Watson continues to play some of his best football, they’ve missed Michael Hurley in their line up. Thankfully for them, he’s back in for today’s game.

But there is still some big names sitting out. Angus Monfries, Brent Stanton and David Hille have all been forced to sit out, along with the stingy defender Dustin Fletcher, which is probably the biggest exclusion of all.

If they do manage to challenge today, they’ll need the midfield to fire in Hurley, Heppell, Hocking and Watson. The likelihood of that is somewhat unlikely because of the way Adelaide’s runners have performed.

But, if West Coasts slump is anything to go by, is it possible Adelaide are starting to tire towards the final few weeks of the season? If so, Essendon could spring a surprise today.