NAB Challenge - Melbourne Match Review
Essendon started their pre-season NAB Challenge practice match schedule with a comfortable 44 point victory over Melbourne at Visy Park on Saturday afternoon.
ESSENDON 6.1 8.5 12.8 18.16 (124)
MELBOURNE 2.6 3.9 8.11 11.14 (80)
Goals: Essendon: P Ryder 3 A Davey 2 B Stanton 2 S Lonergan 2 J Watson 2 A Monfries D Hille M Williams M McVeigh A Welsh J Winderlich H Hocking. Melbourne: Petterd 4 Grimes 2 Jones Jurrah Bell Martin Maric.
Best: Essendon: C Dempsey J Watson P Ryder B Stanton A Davey D Fletcher. Melbourne: J Grimes J Trengove R Petterd C Sylvia B Miller M Bate L Jurrah J Frawley J Bennell.
Injuries: Essendon: Nil. Melbourne: C Morton (leg).
Reports: Nil.
Umpires: R Findlay J Dalgleish T Keating S Wenn.
Official crowd: 3000 at Visy Park.
Some observations by FTWinderlich
Went to the game. I still feel dirty sitting in that place.
Some observations:
Best on ground were fletcher, dempsey, paddy, watson and stants.
- Hille looked good for his first hitout. Actually all the guys playing their first game stants, laycock, hille, dempsey etc all took a bit of time adjusting to the game and made some errors but will be far better for the run.
- Paddy will kick 50 goals from FF this year if laycock and hille can share the load in the ruck. Very very dangerous. With williams, davey, winders and gus all roving around the spillages, we can have a potent forward line. Thats why Laycock is the most important player coming back into our side. He frees up Paddy.
- If gumby gets fit and firing he will make a massive difference to our side as a reiwoldt-esque lead up half forward.
- Our midfield got smashed. I dont know why but we hardly won any clearances around the grounds or in the middle. Our rucks didnt get many hitouts and it looked like their mids were just reading it a lot better and working far-harder for each other in the stoppages.
- Melksham played really well, got smashed around a bit as he obviously needs to bulk up. But has smarts and uses the ball well.
- Howlett also played the last quarter in the middle and would have had 8-10 very nice touches. Looks a player.
- Dempsey is a gun, easily one of the most important players we have. He would have had close to 30 touches and they all hit a target. At one stage he ran from FB to FF unchecked, marked 30m out but shanked the kick. Very impressive for his first game back.
- Slot hurley in that team and it looks fantastic.
- Oh and fark me Myers can hoof the ball! He also looks to be running a lot more freely too.
But yeah, no need to get excited or dissapointed, it kind of looked like they were in cruise control for most of the match, with playing melbourne and it being february and all.
Best thing of all. NO INJURIES