Round 10 1995, Essendon vs. North Melbourne

Game Statistics


ESSENDON.........3.0 5.5  9.7  15.9   (99)
NORTH MELB.......3.2 8.6 13.11 19.12 (126)

Goals:

ESSENDON: Hird, Long, Cummings 3, Bewick 2, Mercuri, Symons, Calthorpe, Young 1.
NORTH MELBOURNE: Carey 7, Archer 3, M Stevens, Armstrong 2, Rock, Allison, Campbell, McKernan, King 1.

Crowd:

59,354 at the MCG

Comment:

Well I have just finished watching the game for the second time tonight - once at the game, and when I arrived home I put the video on to try to work out what went wrong. So many things came out of tonights game, so be prepared for a longer than usual game post-mortem. One wonders how can a team play so badly for three and a half quarters, and still manage to put together ten minutes of the best football you would ever see? That was how tonights game was played. We sucumbed to the immense pressure North applied in the first half. After losing to Geelong in such dramatic fashion, North was determined not to let that happen again. We all know that they are not a bad team, the only thing barring them from doing well was their own self-confidence and the pressure placed on them, especially Carey, by the media. And thus it showed in the game this evening.

However, given that North played well, and I do not want to detract from their win (however much it annoys me) this is the Essendon home page, and it is time to disect the game - what did we do wrong? In a few words - we stuffed around with the footy too much. We handballed and kicked short for most of the game. Perhaps this was due to the pressure applied by North, but I feel that much of the "short-game" was of our own accord. And what a difference it made when we decided to boot the ball long and take advantage of possessions. In the ten-fifteen minutes of the last quarter in which we dominated, that was the tactic we employed. None of that short stuff, just fair dinkum long passes. And I must say, that was probably the best ten minutes that we've played for the year - it just shows you; you can play badly for most of the game, be down by six goals and then be in front after ten minutes of good, honest football (and i guess that's why we love the game, huh?).

Anyway, a few observations. One of the most noticeable things was crowd support. In, what I will from now on refer to as our "good play" (ie. those ten minutes in the last quater), the crowd was absolutely electric - people everywhere jumping up and down, excited by the Essendon play (i must admit, at the moment I have trouble speaking due to the work out I gave my vocal cords in those minutes). By stark contrast, North really dominated the rest of the game, but the crowd reaction was minimal. This begs the question - does North really have a long-term future? I mean if they can't draw big support when they are doing well (and even though they haven't lived up to expectations this year, they are still doing well), what is their future? On the other hand, Essendon has gone from strength to strength since the 1993 flag. The membership drive slogan of "25 (thousand) in 95" has almost been achieved (according to the club, membership is up to about 23,000), and this was really noticeable tonight. Or perhaps it was just the way that the Dons play when in top gear, it really gets your adrenaline going, everyone gets excited, we are one of the few teams that can blow a game wide open in the space of ten minutes - a feat which we have achieved regularly over the last three seasons.

Anyway, enough of my babbling, I have decided from this round onwards I would do a player evaluation after each game. At first I thought of listing each player and giving a score out of ten. But I realised this system wouldn't really be fair, so I've stuck to the traditional 3-2-1 voting system, but I will only vote on Essendon players (ie. it will be the three best Essendon players on the ground). I must stress though:this is only my opinion and no-one elses, so I will accept the fact that I could be wrong in many of my judgements - but hey, who can be objective these days?) Anyway, that was the game that got away, perhaps we could have won after we got in front by three points, but North were really the best team on the night, it was just sad that the final margin had to be 27 points, not really reflective of the effort that the team put in in the last quarter (well for ten minutes anyway). - Brad

Votes:

Voting was fairly difficult given that some players faded in and out of the game, coupled with the fact that we played some ordinary footy for most of the game. Here's how I saw it:

3 - Michael Long
He played well early, dropped out a bit when North had their dominant patch, but was instrumental in getting Essendon back into the game in the last quarter.

2 - Sean Denham
Sean was one of the players able to win quite a bit of the footy during the game. He was especially good early.

1 - Joe Misiti
Possibly Essendon's best in the first half with 18 possessions up to half time. After that he faded out, and spent some time on the bench.

Standing after Round 10:

As a result of our loss, we slipped two places on the ladder, to fourth. We still remain half a game ahead of the Eagles, but we are now behind Geelong and Carlton as well as Richmond. Our percentage also came down, but it remains healthy, although as it turns out percentage may not be a factor for the Dons this year due to our draw with Collingwood. The ladder is as follows: 
---------------P-W-L-D--For--Agst--%--Pts
RICHMOND......10 9 1 -  944  826 114.3 36
GEELONG.......10 8 2 - 1187  830 143.0 32
CARLTON.......10 8 2 - 1002  730 137.3 32
ESSENDON......10 7 2 1 1069  809 132.1 30
WEST COAST....10 7 3 -  930  709 131.2 28
NORTH MELB....10 6 4 -  935  980  95.4 24
FREMANTLE.....10 5 5 - 1051  933 112.6 20
MELBOURNE.....10 4 6 -  846  821 103.0 16
Adelaide......10 4 6 -  762  835  91.3 16
Hawthorn......10 4 6 -  787  873  90.1 16
Footscray.....10 4 6 -  822 1047  78.5 16
Collingwood...10 3 6 1  846  931  90.9 14
Sydney........10 3 7 -  999  995 100.4 12
Brisbane......10 3 7 -  889 1096  81.1 12
Fitzroy.......10 2 8 -  752 1087  69.2  8
St. Kilda.....10 2 8 -  690 1009  68.4  8

Next Week:

Another "blockbuster" (we seem to have had so many already this year, vs. Carlton, Collingwood, West Coast...), and one of Essendon's most important games for the year. Geelong are one of the teams to beat this year, and Essendon must prove that it is a worthy premiership contender. A win here would keep us right up there in the top rungs of the ladder, and a loss could bring us right back into the middle of the eight. Geelong losing Hocking at the tribunal may help our cause, but Alessio's kidney injury has set us back. However, this may be offset by the fact that we are expected to regain Salmon this week. Keeping in mind how we bounced back after our loss to Carlton (we beat the reigning premiers the very next week), I feel confident about our chances against Geelong next week.
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