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Essendon: a club defining win

Roar Rookie
13th April, 2013
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Roar Rookie
13th April, 2013
7

They say that football is a mental game, if that is the case the current Essendon playing list and coaching stuff must have the greatest resilience and mental strength in the game right now.

Look at Port Adelaide as an example; yes they have a new board, new coaching staff, new president but one thing that appears to have united a young playing group is the loss of McCarthy during the off season.

There is nothing like playing for something, it appears early on, and granted they weren’t the most furious or infamous of opponents but Port has still done well, there real test will be The Crows in a Sunday afternoon showdown.

Melbourne on the other hand have a young list and boast a lot more potential talent then a Port Adelaide, but have fallen to pieces under the weight of a seemingly small controversy i.e. the tanking scandal of which they were almost completely cleared.

Essendon’s playing group having faced their greatest test this week stood up for a lot of things, there coach who is sporting a very healthy glow and symbolises the stanch resilience of a club who are under siege by an embattled fitness expert and a weak and understaffed government body who is attempting to save face.

What shocked me were the post-game interviews and the fatigue and exhaustion of Jobe Watson and Brendon Goddard after the game.

Watson who was heavily tagged by arguably the best in the business in Crowley, had a quite night by his standards, with 24 touches and no goals. But during the post-game chat with Richo he looked spent, nothing in the tank, bags under his eyes and his shoulders hunched.

This was not a man that had burnt every ounce of his energy in the game; this was a tired young man who had worn the brunt of an endless assault by a relentless sports media that flock over Melbourne as vultures do a desert.

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This is a guy who has literally lived and breathed Essendon. Goddard on the other hand is a new convert to the red and black, leaving at the right time from what is the sinking ship of the Saints.

For him, to say to Richo that it was the greatest game and win he was involved in spoke paramount to the real value of that win for Essendon, so much more than four points.

It was the resounding confirmation that no matter what happens this season, and no matter what happened the season before, what will happen with the future investigation.

That the playing group will stand by their club, their coach and will above all press on with the job at hand.

AFL is all about the ability to push beyond; beyond physical pain, beyond the rigours of the hardest and most demanding of any team sport in the world. Sometimes we often forget that all this body conditioning and physical perfection can be undone by the lack of mental strength.

It was a season defining win it was a club defining win.

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