Round 15 1995, Essendon vs. Richmond

Game Statistics



ESSENDON.........5.1 10.5 13.8 15.11(101)
RICHMOND.........4.2  8.5 13.6 15.11(101)

Goals:

ESSENDON: James Hird 5, Denham, Cockatoo-Collins 2, Calthorpe, Daniher, O'Donnell, O'Connor, Salmon, Somerville 1.
RICHMOND: Jurica 5, B Gale 3, Maxfield, Broderick 2, Campbell, Daffy, Naish 1.

Crowd:

76,268 at the MCG

Comment:

Again? You've got to be kidding - another draw. Now this must be some sort of record - three draws, and two teams involved in all three. Well, i guess i have to stop saying "percentage doesn't matter anyway". And what a game, and i have to say it - we should have won. This was a game that had everything going in our favour, Richmond with only half a team (well not really, but they lost Knights and Turner during the week), and the Dons coming off a morale boosting thrashing of Adelaide. And as for the game, we had possession after possession, and could not score enough goals.

The game started as though it would be an Essendon bath two weeks running. Four unanswered goals and the Dons were away. But then it was the Richmond style of pluggin' away until they pegged us back to level terms - literally. The standout aspect of Richmond's play, and what ultimately kept them in the game was their tackling and general ferocity at the ball. This was something that Essendon really lacked during the game, although at times when the pressure was on, some good hard play resulted. But it seemed we were more content to let the skills do the work, and then everything would follow. But once again the possession game seemed to cost us. A number (read: too many) handballs went astray during the game, and it seemed each time that we were certain to kick a goal.

It was really a game that had the works, including a bit of biffo. I am, of course, talking about the infamous Wanganeen incident. At the game, I was watching Wanganeen and Michael Gale, and it seemed to me that Wanganeen had only pushed Gale, but when he didn't move, lying almost unconscious on the ground, I thought to myself that there may be something more in this. I looked forward to watching the replay when I arrived home from the ground - boy was I disappointed. The cameras didn't see it, and neither did those idiots who are the channel 7 commentary team (and if someone doesn't shoot MacAvaney before the end of the Gun Amensty, then I will). Anyway, I'll probably update this file tomorrow when I know more, but it looked as though he was reported by the emergency umpire. I certainly hope for Wanga's sake that he didn't do anything, and for the team's sake because he is having another great year. (In the following week Essendon produced a video from behind the goals which showed that all Gavin did was fend off Gale when he ran at him, so no report took place)

Another point I wish to make, and it may sound old and cliched, but that was the worst umpiring I've ever, ever seen. I would like to cite a number of incidents, but two directly spring to mind. First, when Jurica had taken a mark 15 metres out from goal and he played on, handballing directly to an Essendon player, and the umpire called him back to take his kick. This was rubbish, the only reason the umpire could have called him back was if he had blown time-on, I know for a fact that the umpire blew time-on after he had played on, ie. given the handball away. Essendon would have cleared the ball (as the way-wood handball went straight to Misiti (i think)) and no score would have occured (luckily that he only kicked a point when he took his kick). The second incident occured early in the last term, when Calthorpe laid a brilliant hip-and-shoulder on a Richmond player and was called for a free kick. Now this occured directly in front of where I was sitting, on the Southern Stand centre-wing. There was nothing illegal about the shirt-front, and the umpire made a blatent mistake at a crucial time in the game. There were many other shocking decisions, and needless to say my voice is lost, and I too was one of the Essendon fans who took pleasure in booing the umpires from the field.

Special mention must be made of clearly the best player on the ground - James Hird. I really can't say enough about this player, and I know, he's my favorite player anyway, but this was truly a magnificent performance. He kicked the most goals he's kicked in one game this year, and one of them really summed-up his football-intelligence. He took a brilliant mark under extreme pressure from a Richmond defender, and then sensing the opportunity, played on to run into an open goal. Another example of the game he played was when he ran from full-forward up to centre-half back to take the full-back kick-in (how many hyphens in one sentence?). He shows unbelievable maturity for his age and I believe it is beyond all doubt that he will captain the Dons next year.

Another player enjoying good form is Michael Symons. He seems to be relishing the chance to play on the back-line. Last week he played superb football, and tonight he continued on the good form. He had one little indiscretion on the half-backline, but his running strength is what Essendon needs with guys like Harvey missing (who incidently had a good game in the reserves and I would say that he'd be back in the seniors next week).

Having said all that (and enough of my babbling, it must be a Friday night-thing), it was, once again, a wierd feeling with the draw, although this time it felt somewhat inevitable. When that rushed behind was scored for Richmond, which made the margin 6 points, i thought "here we go again". Fortunately O'Connor kicked the goal off hands that levelled the scores, and the rest is history...(well a short, four hour history so far). We certainly have a lot of improving to do before September, and with guys like Alessio, Fletcher, Mercuri, Harvey and Thompson to come back into the side that played tonight, I still think we are capable of matching it with the best this year. - Brad

Votes:

A couple of players stood out tonight and they got the votes as follows:

3 - James Hird
A brilliant game from Jimmy. He really led fron the front, and without him the result probably would not have been a draw.

2 - Michael Symons
Having a very good couple of weeks, Symons played another good game off the backline.

1 - Sean Denham
Really tried hard in the centre, and was able to break free of the extreme Richmond pressure a number of times to give us attacking opportunities.

Standing after Round 15:

Ironically, the draw doesn't really affect us too much. All it means, and I use a theoretical example to illustrate the point, is that instead of having a percentage of around 300 (ie. uncatchable), now we have a percentage that counts. What this is saying is that as long as we keep up a good percentage (and it is still pretty good at this stage), we should not be harmed very much by the draw tonight. This is shown by the fact that we actually moved up a spot to fourth this week. The ladder is as follows:

---------------P--W--L-D--For-Agst---%--Pts

Carlton.......15 13  2 0 1580 1153 137.03 52
Richmond......15 11  3 1 1446 1303 110.97 46
Geelong.......15 11  4 0 1731 1309 132.24 44
Essendon......15  9  4 2 1661 1291 128.66 40
Nth Melb......15 10  5 0 1541 1411 109.21 40
West Coast....15  9  6 0 1288 1163 110.75 36
Melbourne.....15  8  7 0 1344 1190 112.94 32
Footscray.....15  7  7 1 1241 1401  88.58 30
Hawthorn......15  7  8 0 1285 1245 103.21 28
Collingwood...15  6  7 2 1432 1350 106.07 28
Adelaide......15  6  9 0 1173 1432  81.91 24
Sydney........15  5 10 0 1487 1503  98.94 20
Fremantle.....15  5 10 0 1380 1507  91.57 20
St. Kilda.....15  4 11 0 1146 1560  73.46 16
Brisbane......15  4 11 0 1341 1612  83.19 16
Fitzroy.......15  2 13 0 1110 1756  63.21  8

Next Week:

Well, that's it, we've played everyone once, and now we start our relatively easy second round matches. This year every team plays the teams that they have already played in the first seven rounds - in that exact order. So that means we've got Fitzroy next week, which should be a fairly easy match, followed by the Dockers. We really must win nearly all of these games if we are to have any chance of making the top two. Some bad news was that Harvey's ankle didn't come up too well after the game, so we've still got injury worries.
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