Round 9 vs Essendon - Dream

Posted on May 26, 2008 | Category: Match Reports

Essendon 10.12 (72)

Richmond 16.14 (110)

The Game

Neither team could go home happy, but I’m certainly glad to have gone home as winners who should have won by more, than the feeling for the last few weeks. Essendon were woeful for most of this game, and were kept in it by a good third quarter. Richmond were good for most of the game, but too wasteful. But forget all that - we won!

The Good

That first half. The boys were dominant, and only hindered by being waseful in front of goal, and probably messing around with the ball too much. Our pressure and desire for the ball was made more obvious by our oppositions lack of those attributes, but it was nonetheless impressive. Defensively, to hold Essendon was a great feat, with a number of Essendon chances being thwarted by defenders heroics. Moore, King and Thursfield all deserve mentions in that area. Cotchin had a great first half: but seemed to be off the ground for lots of the second half - really hope that wasn’t injury related. He’s already a very exciting player.

McMahon had a better second half than first - his disposals and decision making were atrocious early, but unlike his teammates, played much better as the game went on. Edwards was lively and could have been best on ground, had he been able to kick for goal. Whoever was standing on him was unfit for AFL football though: Edwards isn’t good enough to take 8 marks inside 50. Matt White underlined his improvement and for the first time I’ve seen, really looked like he is in our best 18.

I was impressed with Kayne Pettifer: only back in the side after Polak pulled out with injury. Kayne had lots of the ball, but more impressively did a number of team things over the course of the game. There was one point in the last quarter where he went in and got a contested ball on the ground against two Bomber defenders - unheard of until now. Joelly Bowden looks to be enjoying his football now that he’s been released into an attacking player once more. And I thought that Brett Deledio was just about jibbed for the boomerang: he had plenty of disposals early, but he worked really hard when the game was looking dangerous. Foley (who got the boomerang) played really well again though. That man is a machine - it’s frightening to think how good he’d be if he was playing alongside a G.Ablett or J.Bartell. As it is, he’s always got the number one tagger. Richard Tambling was fantastic early, but I think he just wore himself out with too much nervous energy, because he fell by the wayside late in the game

The Bad

We fell asleep. After building up a dominant lead, we once more let the opposition get back into the game - and if Essendon had finished like they played in the third, we’d be one more loss down. We are still hopelessly inefficient in front of goal, and poor decision making from Browny cost us a couple of goals at important times. We really, really, really need to be putting four quarters of footy together, and we’ll struggle if we don’t do that next week. Simmonds barely won a hitout all night, but was good around the ground.

The Votes

3 - Brett Deledio

2 - Nathan Foley

1 - Kelvin Moore

The Final Word

A win is a win. But we won’t get four points against Sydney unless there’s improvement.

» Filed Under Match Reports

Tags:

• Brett Deledio
• Dreamtime at the 'G
• Graham Polak
• Jake King
• Joel Bowden
• Jordan McMahon
• Kayne Pettifer
• Kelvin Moore
• Matt White
• Nathan Foley
• Richard Tambling
• Trent Cotchin
• Will Thursfield

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