The last few minutes - We erred slightly, but Essendon was amateur hour

[TGR 1,367]

When Essendon had the ball in hand with a couple of minutes to go, the whole ground view was quite pessimistic for the MFC supporter.

Essendon had 2 players completely spare a kick backward of the play.

(Completely separate from their wasted opportunities) The game should have been over as soon as Chapman's short kick found a teammate, but he didn't have the luxury of time to look backwards; thanks to the 'on-again-off-again-on-again' 15m kick rule enforcement. It was the next short kick that landed in the hands of the worst decision-making in footy for a long time.

As we had numbers ("plus-one") back at this stage, Essendon players were not manned up; so icing should have been an absolute piece of cake for them; especially after this second chip kick on the MCC wing in the dying stages. This is where we erred. Surely, in this situation, with the opposition defending a lead with 2 minutes to go, it is incumbent on our players to "man-up" and not leave a free player for an easy chip and hold. It will be interesting to see what we do in the next situation where we need to roll-the-dice in the last few minutes to win, and the opposition have the ball.

So, without even looking backwards, the Essendon player had no choice but to kick long to their I50. Even Neeld would have instructed this very long kick to be 10m in from the boundary. The vision shows Bellchambers asking for it long toward the corridor (rather than the boundary). The long kick went quite central, and was spoilt toward the boundary. As the kick was quite central, the spoil was still in play and the rest is history.

This was an absolute howler, and extremely amateurish on the part of Essendon. Most junior footy coaches would have expected more; even as young as U10 footy.

Mark Thompson cannot even instill the most basic defensive common-sense strategies and/or his players are too dumb/unfit to implement it. Think about it. How many extremely tight games did the cats, under Thompson, have to pinch and hold? Not many. Nick Davis? Christian Salem?

Moral of the story.

1. Thompson was never a brilliant coach; and how some MFC supporters want him taking over Roos is mind-boggling.

2a. We didn't get everything right defensively in that last 2 minute period. If Essendon just did the basics and looked for an available spare, we would have been shown up big-time.

2b. The other thing was (and I'm going by the commentary of sausage-fingers) that we didn't rush to head back after the Salem goal either. We dragged our heels a bit.

3. Thank goodness for imperfection, because it permitted the perfection and football utopia of our last offensive coast-to-coast run.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

(Completely separate from their wasted opportunities) The game should have been over as soon as Chapman's short kick found a teammate, but he didn't have the luxury of time to look backwards; thanks to the 'on-again-off-again-on-again' 15m kick rule enforcement.

Yes, but that didn't matter at all as the umpire was hardly yelling with his call of "play-on" and therefore the Essendon player had plenty of time to take the kick and weigh up his options.

[TGR 1,367]

Yes, but that didn't matter at all as the umpire was hardly yelling with his call of "play-on" and therefore the Essendon player had plenty of time to take the kick and weigh up his options.

Essendon player would have seen the "arms-up" action of the umpire surely. Our guy on the mark obviously didn't hear it, otherwise he would have closed his space.

[Sir Why You Little 37,151]

Thank god Pedo ducked and took his man on....The ball movement from Pedo to Salem was the best i have seen since the 2002 2nd & 3rd Quarters of that final

Jordie on the boundry....Just superb blue collar work.....

More of that please!

[Deecisive 1,709]

I thought Pederson was just bending down to pick up the ball at the moment the essendon players committed big time to the tackle and missed him.... just dumb luck....

[nutbean 8,838]

I thought Pederson was just bending down to pick up the ball at the moment the essendon players committed big time to the tackle and missed him.... just dumb luck....

more like really poor technique

[Sir Why You Little 37,151]

still would have taken big core strength for Pedo to complete the move and dish off

Cudos big time i say.

[nutbean 8,838]

still would have taken big core strength for Pedo to complete the move and dish off

Cudos big time i say.

absolutely

[John Crow Batty 8,879]

Obviously Essendon don't believe in the principle of stacking the backline when protecting a one kick lead with a minute to go. There were only two defenders inside defensive 50 when McDonald started his run to square up the ball. In the end we had 3 to 1 inside 50 and well in front of the pushing back defenders when Salem marked.

Edited June 17, 2014 by america de cali

[nutbean 8,838]

Obviously Essendon don't believe in the principle of stacking the backline when protecting a one kick lead with a minute to go. There were only two defenders inside defensive 50 when McDonald started his run to square up the ball. In the end we had 3 to 1 inside 50 and well in front of the pushing back defenders when Salem marked.

I dont think it was a matter of believing in the principle - as Bomber has said - they were ill disciplined and got sucked up into the contest.

[John Crow Batty 8,879]

I dont think it was a matter of believing in the principle - as Bomber has said - they were ill disciplined and got sucked up into the contest.

No need to apologise for Bomber.

[Akum 2,660]

I dont think it was a matter of believing in the principle - as Bomber has said - they were ill disciplined and got sucked up into the contest.

When Merrett (I think) took the initial mark with just less than 2 minutes to go, Goddard was screaming at him to kick it backwards to any one of 3 unmarked defenders.

Stanton sprinted from the other side of the ground across towards the boundary line forward of Merrett, screaming for the ball. Monumentally dumb. If he'd stayed where he was, Merrett would have turned & kicked it backwards and they would have run down the clock.

Stanton then built manfully on his stupidity by spearing a barely-15m pass forward to Chapman that nearly went out on the full, and the moment was lost.

[John Crow Batty 8,879]

A million and one scenarios could be argued and the ball deep in their forward pocket is an ideal place for it to be for them with a minute left. We don't want to devalue the great work starting from Vince, Pederson and everyone else down the line.

Edited June 17, 2014 by america de cali

[The Reverend 1,736]

A million and one scenarios could be argued and the ball deep in their forward pocket is an ideal place for it to be for them with a minute left. We don't want to devalue the great work starting from Vince, Pederson and everyone else down the line.

Absolutely. Football is a game of chance a lot of the time. We made the most of the only chance we were going to get. End of story. A great victory earned by persistence and application.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Absolutely. Football is a game of chance a lot of the time. We made the most of the only chance we were going to get. End of story. A great victory earned by persistence and application.

Exactly, players get tired and they don't always know how much time there is to go, they may have considered that they needed another score to seal the game.