Bombers Pound The Pies

Essendon stuck a knife through the heart of Collingwood’s Top 4 hopes and in turn kept alive their slim September hopes with an upset 48 point victory at the MCG on Saturday afternoon in AFL Round 17.

The Bombers snapped a three game losing streak against the Magpies dating back to 2006 with the 19.14 (128) to 11.14 (80) and cemented their mid-season surge with five wins from the past six matches. The Bombers now sit two games back from 5th spot and with upcoming matches against the struggling Melbourne and West Coast, the door remains slightly ajar for some September finals action.

Essendon began the match with a bang racking 124 disposals to 66, 50 marks to 21 and 17 inside-50s to 11 and that dominance was translated to scoreboard as the Bombers built up a 28 point lead at the first change.

The Bombers had four goals in the opening ten minutes of the match highlighted by Andrew Welsh with three goals and 11 touches for the quarter.

While the Bombers dominated the opening term, the Pies came out as a different side to begin the second quarter to string four goals in a row and reduce the margin to just two points. The Dons hit back with two goals in two minutes to steady the ship, but Pies forward Travis Cloke added his third goal for the first half to reduce the margin to 9 points at the main break.

Pie forward Alan Didak goaled within the first 20 seconds of the second half Didak goaled on the run just 15 seconds into the third quarter, it seemed the foundation was being laid for a big second half from the Pies, but the Bombers answered as a 13-minute burst produced five goals without reply to Angus Monfries, Matthew Lloyd, Leroy Jetta, Nathan Lovett-Murray and last weeks AFL Rising Star nominee Kyle Reimers and the Bombers handy buffer of a match high 33 points was reestablished. Late Magpies goals to John Anthony and Leon Davis cut the Bombers three quarter time lead to 19 points with 30 minutes left to play.

Collingwood reduced the margin to just 13 when Paul Medhurst registered the first of the final quarter, before the Bombers began another five goal unanswered run including two more from Reimers and majors to Adam McPhee and Welsh killed off the Pies for the afternoon as the Bombers finished off with a seven goal to two final quarter to blow the margin out to 48 at the final siren.

Jobe Watson had a career high 41 disposals, while Andrew Welsh (29 disposals and 4 goals), Ricky Dyson (26 disposals), David Hille (24 disposals) and Matthew Lloyd (4 goals) were among the best for the Bombers.

“It was certainly a very satisfying victory … I thought it was a significant result for the club today,” Essendon coach Matthew Knights told his post-match media conference. “It could have been quite easy after the Richmond loss, where we were really disappointed, to get a bit deflated but … it was a great win for our club today.”

“I thought David (Hille)‘s relationship particularly today with the midfielders was strong,” Knights said. “His ruckwork is better, but what pleases me is he slashes into space and he slashes into holes and presents and he’s giving us another midfield option as a ruckman. And Jobe has had a lot of criticism over the journey but it’s nice to see him developing – Jobe was outstanding today.”

“They’ve done pretty well this year against Collingwood, so we just felt we had to keep the speed on the game,” Knights added. “We executed well; we planned to come here today and play it on our terms and beat Collingwood and it was a good result.”

Essendon return to the MCG next Saturday afternoon for an AFL Round 18 clash against AFL Ladder bottom feeder Melbourne.

Posted 26 July 08 in News Match Review