Expert
Captain Scott Pendlebury has starred in the last quarter and led his team to a gritty 16-point AFL win over Essendon at the MCG.
» Click here to read the full match report
Final score
Essendon Bombers 9.8.62
Collingwood Magpies 12.6.78
The Essendon Bombers will be hoping to keep their late-season revival going against a Collingwood Magpies side that just keeps getting hit by injury.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match and a live blog of the game in Round 16 of the 2018 AFL season at the MCG on Sunday afternoon, starting from 3:20pm AEST.
Essendon have had a funny old season. They started with a Round 1 win over Adelaide that made us think maybe they could take the next step this year, then fell into a patch of bad form.
From Rounds 5-8 they lost to Collingwood, Melbourne, Hawthorn and most embarrassingly Carlton in succession – and they remain the only side all year that has lost to the Blues.
However they’ve since fired up and won five of their last six, including some reasonably good sized scalps like Geelong, GWS, North Melboure, and most impressively West Coast at Optus Stadium.
They’re currently two wins and a decent chunk of percentage outside the top eight, so finals might not be a realistic dream – but just keep winning and anything can happen.
Collingwood are more proof of that than anyone. Despite widespread expectations that another poor season was on the cards, and mounting injury problems, they’re proving the doubters wrong this year.
Right now they are a top-four side and perhaps almost the injuries should be thanked – they’ve forced Nathan Buckley to innovate and create an unconventional forward line that has solved one of the ‘Pies most enduring headaches, their lack of ability to score.
Unfortunately for Collingwood they’ve lost Lynden Dunn to an ACL injury and so will now be looking to do the same kind of innovation in a backline that finds itself bereft of traditional tall defenders.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match and a live blog of the game between the Essendon Bombers and the Collingwood Magpies in Round 16 of the 2018 AFL season at the MCG on Sunday afternoon, starting from 3:20pm AEST.