The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

Great test to see where Essendon's at this year

Roar Pro
9th May, 2011
11

That’s the feeling I got after Essendon’s win over the West Coast Eagles. A 16 point win might not sound convincing to most footy followers, but to Essendon it meant a hell of a lot.

I mentioned before in my previous article about this week’s game how consistency would play a big part in determining the result. Well, the first quarter of the game didn’t alleviate my fears about our mental capabilities to play each week at such a level.

We just didn’t turn up and play, simple as that.

Our inability to rebound from 50 and our terrible use of the footy in the midfield, combined with some brilliance from Daniel Kerr (14 disposals in the first term) caused us to fall behind on the scoreboard and we showed some worrying signs of just switching off our pressure.

Once that goes in a game, you’re behind the eight ball.

However, we weren’t made to pay on the scoreboard by the Eagles. Usually when a team has 21 inside 50′s for the quarter, you can bet your lucky stars a five goal lead will be the result.

It wasn’t and the few forays forward we had we converted them, which allowed us to stay in the hunt.

Our start to the second quarter wasn’t much better and I have to admit I was having my doubts on us being able to perform week in, week out, not when it suits us.

Advertisement

However, our intensity during the middle of the quarter was great, and goals to Crameri and Zaharakis really lifted our team moral and you could we were starting to get into top gear.

A couple of late goals, one a contender for ‘Goal Of The Year’ by Brad Ebert, kept us behind at the long change, but you could tell that the boys had another gear left in them.

And what a time to stand up!

Our renowned fast attacking game came to the fore and we completely blew the eagles off the park. We started linking up with one another and one of our many strengths in our forward line is players like Hille, Crameri and Reimers being long strong kicks and there’s nothing better than seeing players having confidence in their ability to kick 50 and 60 metre bombs.

We were able to kick the only six goals of the quarter and set up a match leading 24 point lead at the last change.

After our frenetic third quarter the boys knew that they would come back and make a really good fist of it, and I thought that we held up the dam wall pretty well.

We probably, in all honesty, didn’t deserve to win today, especially when you consider the Eagles shocking goal kicking conversion rate (12.18) but then again you could mount an equally solid argument that the loss to Sydney and the draw to Carlton should’ve been victories.

Advertisement

It’s all about making your opportunities count in the game of AFL, and that’s exactly what we did. It may not have been pretty, but we got the four points.

Now let’s move on to the match against Brisbane at the Gabba next Saturday night. We can’t take this team on lightly and nor will we.

close