By Guy Incognito
Do you believe In Magic?

A bit of good fortune, that an article of a similar train of thought has just been published on the official website, titled “Knights: We must believe we can win”.

I have been critical of the club and players in the past few years, not solely because a player played a bad game, or that we weren’t good enough, the most frustration has come from a lack of belief in themselves from everyone at the club, that they did have the talent, that we did have the players to be better than we were.

I’ve believed we’ve had the team, to be a top 8, if not a top 4 team for awhile. I’ve seen players that could grow into top flight players and I’ve seen players who could be the grunt players, who will round out the team.

Now this isn’t a pump myself up session, to brag, oh I got in first, I saw this, this and this. It’s quite easy to see talent in an individual and a team, however the players are the ones who go out there and bust their arses off, trying to get to the potential most of us see.

I along with I’m sure 99% of Essendon followers are simply happy, that the players themselves, are indeed finally starting to believe in themselves, Believe they can work hard, they can run hard, they can fight til the very end of games, they can take teams on and even match top teams. Now they have to believe they are as good as THE BEST, this week, when playing Geelong.

So while Knights is asking the players they need to believe,

Do you believe?

I certainly do.

We have our flaws, like everyone and everything does, but so what? If the boys are truly to believe, they must believe that flaws and all, they can win, and that it won’t be easy, and they’ll have to work their arses off, and that they will make mistakes, they must still believe that they can cover any mistakes they do make.

If for nothing else, I hope they win, for themselves. Yes we’d all love it for them to win for us, but in reality, we aren’t the ones who sacrifice a hell of a lot, for the club, the players are, and when they wake up on Monday morning, I want them to realize they DESERVE to be where they are. They deserve to be a part of a successful Essendon, similar to the old days of Essendon, again not just for us fans, but for themselves. I want them to get it, not just think oh we can be good, I want them to know they are good. Then the world is theirs.

Anyway onto the match itself.

Before we took on Carlton, Brisbane took them on, and had a specific game plan against them, let Judd do his thing, and focus on shutting down his lieutenants, as a general without men behind him, is what ? Just a man

Despite Claiming to tag Judd, the following week, when we played them, he had 30 plus posies, and Hocking was constantly running off him. We put a lot of focus into the other dangerous players in Gibbs and Murphy, and while at the end of the day they had a reasonable amount of possessions, they weren’t effect.

This week I hope the club took notice of I believe it was Jason Akermanis comments following last weeks game, “We tried to take them on at their strengths, because they don’t really have any weaknesses”.

I have a rough Idea of how to give yourself a better than even chance of winning against Geelong, it’s quite simply in theory. In practice obviously that’s where it becomes harder.

So how does someone beat a team that seemingly has no real flaws ?

To use a great quote from a tv series called Skins, all you can do is say “fark it” (Hopefully I don’t get in trouble for swearing on the front page ha).

We aren’t going to stop Geelong’s talented players, and quite frankly the focus shouldn’t be stopping guys like Ablett, Bartel and co. Stay with them, and make them work hard for every possession they get, across the board, sure that is what we need to do, but trying to “tag” any of them and have 1 player if not more devoted only to a stopping and or “negative” role, will not help us, as a team win.

What we need (which has been happening anyway) everyone one of our 22 players attacking the game and ball all the time, at all costs. We need to take it up to Geelong, we need to test them, we need to do what they do to teams. We need everyone to run hard, fast and without fear of making a mistake (even if they do make some, ahell even a lot ) we need them to constantly attack, again without FEAR. Hooker and pears need to run off Mooney and Hawkins at every opportunity. Make them chase us around the ground, and see how they like it.

Too many teams are scared (rightly so) that if their backman leave their opponents against Geelong, that they will get burnt, with basically the awesomeness that is Geelongs backline and midfield who like to get numbers back.

That is a strength of theirs, screwing with oppositions minds.

I’d rather us, the whole team, take Geelong on, run off their opponents, have no fear, and play the game WE want too, and lose, even by a fair amount, rather than be scared of what Geelong might do to us, if we dare take a risk here and there.

Geelong are very structured, they know where to run, and when to run. We need to upset that, again the only way for that to happen is, we need our guys to run off them, and make them chase us.

Key players
Basically everyone on our team is going to have to be a key player. Everyone of our players is going to have to have the mentality of taking their opponent and the whole team on, and backing their team mates to do the same. It’s not even just about possessions, Neagle could become a very important player, if Geelong get numbers back, he is going to have to crash packs and simply hurt any Geelong player who gets in his way. Their defense is pretty damn stingy, so he isn’t going to get a lot of opportunity re goals, one would think, so he has to contribute in other ways. We’ve kicked 15 plus goals with Lucas and Neagle not getting a lot of goals, so we can score goals, without our big targets getting a lot, so again, we simply need 22 players do everything and anything they can to help benefit the whole team.

Key matchups
Pears v Mooney
Hooker v Hawkins
Lovett v Ablett ( I’d tell Lovett to simply try and run him off his feet )
Monfries v Bartel (if Bartel plays back)

Tip
I reckon we will win. Could be anywhere between 15-30 points, but for a definitive number I’ll go us by 25 points