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Essendon - Supporter Support

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OK ......so games are not all going Essendon's way at the moment. We really needed Brisbane to win last night (where were you AussiePaul). The pies getting up was good.

But ...IF WE WANT IT ENOUGH....we could still be a chance.

Now...taking it one week at a time....we need to get over Richmond today (which won't necessarily be a given).

If we do that we will be sitting 9th going into the last round.

Then looking at next week: There are three games of interest.

Firstly Essendon v West Coast ........Essendon must win that one.

Secondly Collingwood vs Adelaide. If Adelaide win on Friday night then they will be in front of Essendon on percentage and we will need the third game to play out.

Sydney v Hawthorn - played on Sunday......it could transpire that Sydney will go into this match knowing that it needs to win to make the 8. If they don't Essendon will grab eight spot. Luckily Hawthorn will have something to play for as well because if WC get done by Bombers then Hawthorn could be playing for second spot and a home final. Better to meet WC in Melbourne than Perth.

Then again if the bombers are going to beat them in Perth in Round 22 how hard can they be?

Plenty of ifs, buts, maybes, shoulda, woulda, coulda, if my Aunt was my Uncle type of predictions made here but..............have to keep the dream alive a little longer.

Come on boys, do it for Sheeds and Hirdy.

Duckman
 
Duckman#72 said:
OK ......so games are not all going Essendon's way at the moment. We really needed Brisbane to win last night (where were you AussiePaul). The pies getting up was good.

But ...IF WE WANT IT ENOUGH....we could still be a chance.

Duckman
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G'day Duckman ... arrived in the US today...so will miss this weekends and next weekends matches ... first thing i did was look up how the Lions went ... BUGGER ... oh well, they can still make it ... however extremely unlikely and i have to concede probably 10th spot is where they will likely finish now. We had to win that game against Adelaide to be in the hunt!
Anyway, good luck to the Don's ...they really need a lot of key results to go their way ... but stranger things have happened????
By the way, was the Lions/Crows game a good game? I heard Brown was kept to 1 solitary goal.
Cheers for now!
 
AussiePaul72 said:
Anyway, good luck to the Don's ...they really need a lot of key results to go their way ... but stranger things have happened????
By the way, was the Lions/Crows game a good game? I heard Brown was kept to 1 solitary goal.
Cheers for now!
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Have a good time over there.

Was it a good game? Not really - Brisbane was thumped in the midfield. Crows dominated possession and the corridor and managed to get huge numbers back. Brown was double and triple teamed most of the night. And the delivery to Brown (what there was of it) was pretty sub standard. As good as the Crows were in defence they were pretty ordinary in attack. They should have won by 50 points but poor options and poor kicking let them down. So many times did they just bomb it into the forward line.

One thing that the Crows do well is run.......they just run opponents into the ground. McLeod, Johncock were very solid for Crows and Notting was good for Brisbane.
 

Thanks for the description .... not one of their better games by the sound of it .. but they also had a few out.
Just had a look at the AFL website .... Dogs and Hawkes in a real battle at present .... and Port leading the Cats ..... maybe it'll be the Power that slip into 2nd spot?? .... a loss by the Hawkes could see them lose a few places i'm guessing
Anyway, time to get to bed here in LA with the lovely sound of planes taking off and landing in the background ...at least its only for tonight!!
 
A good win last night by a very young Essendon!!

Pre-season is mostly a poor indicator for the season ahead, however, having said that - the signs shown by the youngsters was genuinely exciting.

I have no doubt the Bombers went up to Cararra just looking to blood some kids and to see where they were at. For a team without 14 "season starters" they performed very well. Players like Dempsey, Dick, Lonergan, Houli, Jetta, Hocking, Reimer, Gumbleton(bad injury loss) who don't have more than half a dozen first grade games if any at all. Remember that they were playing a side containing Copeland, Power, Lappin, Adcock, Notting, Stiller, Sherman etc (in other words..... for the first time in a long time Essendons average age was less than their opponents). Brisbane will look much better with a decent ruckman back. Hille and Laycock were too dominant across the ground and at the clearances.

Well done guys. Good start Matty Knights.... and may it continue well into 2008.

Duckman
 
The youngsters do it again.

A 54 point win over the Doggies tonight.

Next week will be a tester - playing either St Kilda or Geelong.

Bring on the season!!!!

Duckman
 
Crap!!!! I had competing priorities tonight and watching the Bombers was second, unfortunately. Damn!!! Anyway, encouraging. I thought the first few times we took the preseason cup very seriously. Then it just happened to us. And then, it was a distraction. You play to win. Always!! Turnaround is already spotted....
 
kennas said:
Anyway, encouraging. Turnaround is already spotted....
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Excellent effort by the boys on Friday night. They had a red hot go and nearly came away with it.

They just needed some cool heads with 1 min remaining. The likes of Fletcher, Lloyd, McPhee and in years gone by Hirdy would have settled things
down in a normal game.

But the kids look exciting. And they look HUNGRY. And to think that people like Lovett, Lovett-Murray, Houli, Jetta and Winderlich weren't playing on Friday. The Bombers may have more depth than we first realised. Sheedy may have been right.

Anyway - good on them for trying. The season bring much needed renewed hope!!

As a side issue - I hope that the umpires aren't as trigger happy in the season proper. Something like Saints 36 free kicks to Bombers 23. Hopefully the umpires will watch the tape of Monfries dropping on the ball with 52secs to go and use that as the perfect example of diving on ball to kill a contest.

My pet hate is when a player actually tries to make the play and is first to the ball and the second player holds the ball into him and the play maker gets penalised. It is my opinion that it is the second player that should be penalised for holding the ball.

Duckman
 
How did they look gents?

Sounds good in the papers.

Lucas is going to be a big loss.
 
kennas said:
How did they look gents?

Sounds good in the papers.

Lucas is going to be a big loss.
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They looked very good kennas, after the first quarter.

North got the jump on us and the umpires gave them a few goals in that first quarter but we hung in there.

Once we got our game going half way through the second quarter, we steamrolled them.
Too quick and too fit, worked hard for each other and lots of great efforts by our younger guys.

Knighter gave the following votes

3: McVeigh
2: Lloyd
1: Watson

Go Bombers
 

It was a very impressive win.

They could have dropped their bundle when 27 points down in the 2nd quarter. But full credit to them and Matty Knights.

Great use of interchange - all the commentators were questioning taking LLoydy off after 10mins, but coaching staff stuck to their guns and they ran the legs off the Kangas.

Dempsey, Houli, Jetta looked like very welcome additions to the team.

Losing Lucas will be tough but........it mimght ,make some of the others stand up this year (McPhee).

Overall great result .....but not getting too carried away...we started like this last year also.

Duckman
 
Duckman#72 said:
Overall great result .....but not getting too carried away...we started like this last year also.
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Oh dear....that's why.

On a positive note...... we don't play Geelong again for a while. Looked like the school seniors taking on the under 13's today. Welcome to the big league boys.

Duckman
 
Duckman#72 said:
Oh dear....that's why.

On a positive note...... we don't play Geelong again for a while. Looked like the school seniors taking on the under 13's today. Welcome to the big league boys.

Duckman
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yeah a bit of a wake up call, but I don't think anyone would have got close to Geelong today, they were awesome.
 
Duckman#72 said:
Oh dear....that's why.

On a positive note...... we don't play Geelong again for a while. Looked like the school seniors taking on the under 13's today. Welcome to the big league boys.

Duckman
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It was brutal.

Made us look second rate and a big wake up call.

If the hammering hasn't knocked all the confidence out of us, i would be hoping we should bounce back against the enemy next week.
 
Real1ty said:
It was brutal.

Made us look second rate and a big wake up call.

If the hammering hasn't knocked all the confidence out of us, i would be hoping we should bounce back against the enemy next week.
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Yeah Real - of all the teams - why Carlton next week!!!

Carlton love getting up for the Bomber clashes. Very possible that the Blues will do it again next week. Form goes out the window with Carlton with these games.

Danger game. Hopefully the Bombers look back at the tape and watch and learn how football should be played.

And Matty - run and gun footy might be exciting when you're winning but when you're not it can be woeful to watch.

Duckman
 
Whew!! Got through the Blues - just!!

Next week will be another tester against the Bulldogs. The Bombers have had some success over the doggies in recent history (forgetting that it was the dogs that wrecked the "Perfect Season" of 2000 by beating us in Round 21 of that year.

Bombers should be able to match up reasonably well - just inexperienced. Doggies going into unchartered territory with 4 straight wins - they will be due for a loss shortly. They should have lost to Saints on Friday night. Bulldogs can't keep jagging these victories out of thin air.

The Bomber kids looked OK against Carlton. It was a strange game - I can't think of too many standouts for Bombers and they won, yet I can think of a few Carlton players that played well and they lost.

Laycock and Hille doing OK at times, but need to start dominating whole games, not just 10 minute bursts. Paddy Ryder looks better every outing. We need another marking forward to step up this week.

I think our defence is good enough, provided our inexperienced midfield can put pressure on theirs and choke the quality delivery into the forward line. If the midfield is not up to it, the small experienced quicks for WB will tear us up.
Our forward line should match up OK against theirs.

Bombers by 19 in a shootout.

Duckman
 
Has Ryder put on any weight yet? Maybe if he did it would reduce his leap?

I've been overall disappointed with Hille's progress. With his size and skill he really could dominate, but he just doesn't get enough of the pill.

Forward line's looking thinner with Jetta out. How's McPhee filling in? I think he's much better across half back...

Sounds like Daniher might get a run up front shortly. That'll be interesting.
 

Hi Duckman,

The bombers are playing alot better this year.

I think you're being a bit harsh on the dogs, after quarter time on Friday night they were clearly the better side, they crushed the Saints in the midfield.

I'm also not so sure about your defence, Carlton kicked 134 points against you guys which would have won any other game on the weekend, just lucky Carltons defence is worse than the bombers. I will admit alot of this probably has a bit to do with your midfield as well.

Like you said if you can't curb the influence of some of their onballers you guys could be in trouble. I think you will really miss Lucas this week, they wouldn't have been able to man up both him and Lloyd, but now Lake will get Lloyd, and my money is on Lake:

I actually think the Bulldogs are a better side then most people give them credit for.

Good luck though, good to see a competitive bombers side.

PS - How good are the Hawks looking?
 

Hi Kennas

Paddy has put on some weight - not a heap. But it is reading of the play and his assuredness with the ball that has been impressive over the past few weeks. Great hands, great athlete and also good footy brain..... but his body is more Fletcher than Mal Michael.

As for Hille.......I'm not sure what to think. He does some great things at times but as I said, just has trouble imposing himself on games. But he's getting better - slowly.

Jetta out is a blow. McPhee is an enigma. I'm still waiting for him to have another year like he did 3 years ago when he came across from WA. He played alright against Carlton. I would be happy of everyone in the Bombers lineup could hold their marks like McPhee. His marking has been a highlight this year. But I'm also of the opinion that he is better suited to a roving backline position.

As for marking forwards.....from the games I watched pre-season and home and away of all people I reckon Jobe Watson makes a good fill in leading forward. Hard to believe but he has good hands and good timing on his leads, but he is a terrible bloody kick!!! Merv Neagle's son Jay also looked good playing key a forward role in the pre-season. One of those players that "makes things happen". The other option is Courtney Johns.

Duckman
 
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