Saints Send Bombers Straight To Hell

Essendon gave St. Kilda a nine goal start, before deciding to turn up and play and for a time looked like stealing a remarkable victory, but in the end the Saints steadied to take out a comfortable 36 point victory as the two sides met at the Phone Dome in AFL Round 5 on Friday night.

For thousands of Bomber fans stuck in the train transport havoc before the game, it was a blessing in disguise that most of those fans missed the first half action as the Saints pressured the Bombers into mistake after mistake and a dysfunctional Essendon forward line led by listless skipper Matthew Lloyd could not capitalise on their rare sorties forward.

With the Saints dominating the midfield, they had 10 individual goalkickers in the opening half to take a 44 point lead into half time and the contest at that point of time looked all but over.

When Saint forward Justin Koschitzke put his side 51 points up early in the third term, those Bomber fans that had just arrived must have thought about heading back out the gate and tackle the train side home.

But then out of nowhere the Bombers then turned the game on its head through the next six goals of the third term to cut the deficit to 16 points and gave Bomber supporters some hope of what looked unthinkable at half-time.

Adam McPhee started the Bomber run with a goal at the five-minute mark and, five minutes later, youngster Tayte Pears kicked his first of the match to make it four in six minutes and cut the margin to 27 points. Jay Nash reduced the margin further via a long running goal and Patrick Ryder kicked another two minutes later, to bring the margin to just 16 points and the Bombers looked like swamping the tiring Saints. But a Nick Riewoldt goal within the last 10 seconds of the third term stalled the Bombers momentum and gave the Saints a handy 23-point buffer at the final change.

A minute into the final term, Gutterrat Saint Stephen Milne’s snapped his first goal for the game from the left forward pocket and added a second from the opposite pocket to put the Bombers out of the contest once and for all. The Bombers only highlight for the final term was when Adam McPhee produced the goal of the night, and possibly the year, with a freakish effort under extreme pressure from hard up on the boundary.

Riewoldt finished with three goals for the Saints, while Saint full-back Max Hudghton kept Lloyd to seven touches and no goals.

Young midfielder Bachar Houli was once again impressive with two goals and 23 possessions, Jobe Watson gathered 28 disposals, while Kyle Reimers did well off half-back along with Dustin Fletcher and Patrick Ryder.

Essendon coach Matthew Knights was disappointed after the match.

“We generated a lot more run in the second half,” he said.

“In the first half we just played within ourselves, particularly when we had the ball, not so much around trying to win the ball but when we had the ball we played very stop-start football.

“In the third quarter we shared the ball, we started to get some overlap run and we generated some good inside-50s, but unfortunately it took a half to come and the game was shot by then.”

Knights put Lloyd’s performance down as an aberration, but said Essendon had to consider other options if their full-forward was well covered.

“Matthew’s got a lot of pride in his performance and he’d be as disappointed as anyone at the ground tonight … he just had one of those nights. Hudghton was outstanding,” Knights added.

Essendon now slip to a 2-3 record with Collingwood and the traditional ANZAC Day clash at the MCG next on the agenda in AFL Round 6.

Posted 19 April 08 in Match Review