Essendon have overcome a shaky start to shore up their top-four AFL spot with a 39-point win over Greater Western Sydney at Skoda Stadium on Saturday.
The Bombers trailed by three points at the first change, but Essendon hit the front early in the second quarter on their way to a 18.8 (116) to 11.11 (77) win.
Travis Colyer kicked four goals for Essendon, who played well in spurts but found it difficult to put the Giants away.
GWS plunged to 0-16 for the season, but gave their supporters plenty of hope for the future by rebounding well from last weekend’s 129-point thrashing by the Swans.
The Giants finished narrowly ahead in marks, clearances and contested possessions with highly-rated key forward Jeremy Cameron and ruckman Jonathan Giles each kicking four goals.
GWS bolted out of the blocks, producing their best first quarter of the season to bank a 5.3 to 5.0 advantage.
Essendon dominated the second quarter, scoring the first 15 points and outscoring GWS 3.3 to 1.0 to lead by 12 at the long break.
The Bombers kicked the first two goals of the third quarter to expand their lead to 24, but three straight majors got GWS back to within six points.
Essendon steadied and regained control by kicking four straight goals to establish a 32-point buffer at the last change.
The Bombers booted the first two majors of the final term, but the Giants didn’t help their cause by tallying 2.7 in that quarter.
Geronimo
Guest
Mark Do you have a better GWS training camp link - couldnt find it. Good luck to the Wanderers - they have achieved wondrous things but maybe they gave out free tickets early too. Every code gives out free tickets because empty grounds look bad and the caterers usually have guaranteed contracts realting to minimum crowds so it makes it worthwhile for them to turn up
Mark
Guest
GWS are far from folding, about as far as possible in fact. The GWS GIANTS' new training base at Sydney Olympic Park is beginning to take shape with building to be complete in preperation for the 2014 pre-season http://www.aflnswact.com.au/index.php?id=5&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1984&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=88b676e1ce Good on the Wanderers for getting X amount of members, i am aware of some crossover, plenty of people to go around for both, particuarly in WS. What i don't like is soccer and RL people having a running crusade to run down GWS, i am a firm believer in Karma, and what goes around comes around.
Stavros
Guest
How would I know how many free tickets there were, if there were any. You don't know either, so not sure why you think you are some sort of authority. I couldn't care less how many members WSW have. Lets see how they are going in 10 years time. Lets see how they go when they have a couple of poor seasons in a row.
Horatio
Guest
The AFL has 600K members and 2 of them are pets - total crowd 6 m. The A league has how many members and total crowds are (don't count Man United). The Wanderers played in a GF and are owned by the FFA and had a pool of established players to pick from. GWS are an under 20s side that haven't won a game and have been belted in some games yet still average better than some A league clubs when they have no footy competition in summer. Unlike NQ and GCU and Northern Spirit etc, GWS wont fold...
Post hoc
Guest
So how many of them were free? Or don't you like talking about that? What part of the team development is that? The second year? Wanderers opened their membership to the general public yesterday, they are at 11,700 by COB Monday. Their is a chance they will have to cap membership. and we are talking full membership here, not the Pet variety
Dan
Guest
He didn't play.
Maca
Guest
Alwyn - he's mighty agile!
Horatio
Guest
There would be 4K Essendon supporters in NSW that would have gone along so you wild stab at the number of freebies is wide of the mark. RL got 52K to 5 games over the weekend and the Tigers and panthers crowds looked inflated - see I can make wild statements too...
Horatio
Guest
The AFL needs Shane Hayne for some of its games....
Franko
Guest
Plenty of people tipped Sheedy to resign after the GWS Essendon match: http://www.theroar.com.au/2013/07/16/time-for-sheedy-to-step-aside-at-gws-giants/ As for the code wars, I have zero interest mate.
Stavros
Guest
The Man Utd game started about 6 hours after the GWS game, so by the time people got to ANZ stadium the AFL would have been over. You have had 48 hours to come up with something and that is the best you can do. Run along little man.
Stavros
Guest
Franko, you must have been the only one to tip that. Maybe you should stick to the soccer tab.
Franko
Guest
No resignation from Sheedy as tipped after this one? The only thing I heard him say was that Jeremy Cameron should be an AA this year. Considering the ball rarely seems to go in the GWS forward 50 more than 40 times a game, his 40 odd goals have been pretty hard earned this year. One could only imagine how he’d get on if he played in a half decent team. Leon Cameron should start to worry if he begins to think the same...
andyincanberra
Guest
22,000 turned up to watch ManU train. I don't think that any sporting contest in Sydney would have beaten that crowd. Aside from the actual match involving ManU. That aside. Is there anything wrong with giving away free tickets at this point in team's development? I'm not sure that the figure would have been too inflated by soccer fans given that the AFL match finished a fair time before the ManU match started.
Post hoc
Guest
How many of them were free tickets for the Manchester United Game. Yep you heard that right, if you had a ticket to the Man U game you got free entry to the GWS game. LOL. Even with free tickets they couldn't get as many to the game as paid and saw Man U train.
Dan
Guest
There was a Davey playing?
Ads
Guest
So when jab watson and his mates get all their points taken off them, will we see two teams finish a season with zero points? Or do those points get given to the bombers opposition? May be a good season to have played them twice. Be good to see how gws go next year with the nine million dollar man. Ah modern footy, king andrew has made it more like a soap opera than an elite sporting league.
Mark
Guest
Sauce ? ... would say yours is sour not sweet , cheers Ralphie :)
Ralph Nadeer
Roar Rookie
No freakin' out - 8k of the tickets were free and they were lucky there was a football game at ANZ with 84K spectators who were given free AFL tickets on the same day.
Stavros
Guest
Poor John and Pat, they must have freaked out when they saw the crowd was over 10k. This from a team that hasn't won a game.