For the 33rd time in the last 40 trips, Essendon return to Victoria with the tails between their legs following a scoreboard flattering 23 point loss to open AFL Round 4 against the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco Oval.

The Bombers led by four points when Michael Hurley kicked the Bombers fifth first term goal before the Weagles piled on the next nine goals to burst out to a 52 point lead early in the third term before they took the foot off the pedal and cruise home to a comfortable 15.11 (101) to 11.12 (78) win and leve the Bombers reeling with a 1-3 record and 13th spot on the AFL ladder after the first month of the 2010 AFL Season.

Skipper Jobe Watson finished with 34 possessions, 19 of which were contested. While Andrew Welsh and ruckman David Hille were amongst the best in a side that had too many players go missing during the middle half of the game.

As was the case in the Bombers NAB Cup loss to the Weagles at the same venue in February, their young hype machine ruckman Nic Naitanui was the star of the show finishing with 13 possessions, 17 hit-outs, seven inside 50s, five tackles and a goal. Naitanui started proceedings from the opening bounce taking the ball out of the ruck, handballing to himself before pumping the ball inside 50m, where Mark LeCras kicked the opening goal of the match. That whole process took all of ten seconds from the opening siren.

The Weagles disposal let them down however in the opening term and the Bombers capitalised on the scoreboard kicking five goals – including two to Paddy Ryder – to trail by just four points at the quarter time break.

But after the promising opening term, it all fell apart for the Bombers in the second as the home side piled on six goals to none and take a 39 point lead into the main change, and barring a miracle the match at that point was already over.

The Weagle lead swelled to 52 before the Bombers broke their nine goal run with their only goal for the third term.

Essendon added five of the last six goals of the match to add “respectability” to the scoreboard, but to those Bomber fans watching at home, they knew the 23 point margin in the end was flattering something with Essendon coach Matthew Knights agreed with after the match.

“It was a very disappointing night for the football club tonight, because we’d won our first game of the year and come into tonight with good momentum, but some of the football we played was appalling,” he said.

“The Eagles were a lot cleaner than we were; we fumbled a lot. Also, our disposal by foot was atrocious. I think we were running at about 35 per cent there at different stages.”

“If you’re not taking the ball cleanly and also turning it over when you get it, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“To be blunt with you, I wasn’t even that impressed with the fact we scored goals late. You’ve got to perform at your best when the game’s there to be won early and we didn’t do that.”

Next on the agenda for the Bombers is the traditional ANZAC Day clash against Collingwood at the MCG to begin another tough month on paper with the Bombers sitting 1-7 afterwards could not be discounted.