The AFL is killing its prime time footy spots with depleted Dons

Everyone could have predicted how the depleted Bombers taking on the high flying Giants was going to end, and the AFL’s fixturing is ‘killing’ its prime time spots.

THE options included Emergency, Griff’s Great American South, Law & Order and Treasures with Brittany Hughes.

While you might not be across all of them, they were the free-to-air TV shows being offered as an alternative to Essendon taking on the GWS Giants on Thursday night.

Obviously now with the plethora of streaming services available, TV viewers can also just flick a button and start watching the latest Hollywood movie offering, most likely involving Liam Neeson because he’s in everything.

And they would have been doing that on mass given the unfortunately predictable nature of what happened at Marvel Stadium.

The script said the horribly undermanned Bombers would show a bit of fight for the first 30 minutes before the Giants superior class and skill would take over and the game would degenerate into glorified circle work.

The Bombers’ depleted team were competitive in the early stages then fell away. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

Brad Scott’s depleted team lived up to the first part impressively, fighting hard, pressuring and matching it with the Giants throughout the opening quarter.

But there is one thing a struggling team needs above all else when they’re trying to keep their heads above water, they need to take their chances when they come.

The Bombers fluffed their lines badly in this department with just five points in the first term and towards the end of the second quarter they’d progressed to eight behinds.

That meant they’d scored one goal and 21 points since quarter-time last week against Richmond. Fair to say, that sort of behaviour isn’t going to keep you in games.

And even more annoying was the fact it was the senior players at fault with Peter Wright, who previously was a good kick, missing two set shots, Matt Guelfi another gettable set shot while defender Jordan Ridley received a 50m penalty but still couldn’t convert the third goal of his career from 35m directly in front.

The stats sheet was even at quarter-time which was a reward for effort that was obvious, the two shining lights being captain Zach Merrett and Sam Durham.

You would love to go to war with Durham, even when the night was slipping away his hunt on the ball and any Giant in his way was exemplary.

Peter Wright was unable to convert his two set shots. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

It was debutant Liam McMahon who put the Bombers on the board. Picture: Michael Klein

First-gamer Liam McMahon also deserves a shout-out with the mid-season draftee kicking the Bombers first, and second, goals with two nice set shots either side of half-time.

But after that, if you were still watching, the remote control would have been reached for because not much else happened.

It was hard work for those who had bothered to turn up to Marvel with the crowd of 20,347 the third lowest for an Essendon home game since 1997 and worst since 2016 season when their list was decimated because of the supplements saga.

They did get to see ex-Bomber Jake Stringer take a hanger on one of his best mates, Jayden Laverde, and thoroughly enjoy his evening, finishing with three goals and eight score involvements from 18 touches.

Jake Stringer got one up on close mate Jayden Laverde. Picture: Michael Klein

Stringer was part of Laverde’s wedding party and the pair, reportedly, speak almost daily.

“I was just more happy about that mark on Jayden but he was a bit salty with me after it,” Stringer told Fox Footy.

“I reckon that mark will be the wallpaper on my phone for the next six weeks.”

Scott said he tried to tag Tom Green but it didn’t work with the Giants midfielder bringing his own Sherrin (30 possessions, 16 clearances) while Finn Callaghan (33 disposals) is pretty to watch anytime anywhere.

Understandably the Bombers coach was refusing to use his side’s horror injury list as an excuse for their seventh loss in a row.

“We don’t really want to dwell on the challenges or the negatives, we actually want to rise to the challenge,” Scott said.

“We want to be a no-excuse football club.

“We would like to have better availability, but we field 23 fit players every week, and we give opportunities to guys who deserve it.”

As had been highlighted in the lead-up, there is a fear the AFL is “killing” their two prime time TV spots, Thursday and Friday nights, because of a misguided punt to put Essendon and Carlton in them when they did the Round 16-23 fixture back in May.

The league is refusing to embrace a flexible fixture like other major sports around the world where the integrity of big TV slots is priority with games being shifted up to three weeks out if teams are deemed not worthy of appearing in the brightest lights.

Apparently Carlton getting smashed isn’t bad for ratings but no-one tunes into Essendon getting torched on a Thursday night because there is no whiff of a coach sacking so what Griff is up to on the ABC has far more interest.

Originally published as The AFL is killing its prime time footy spots with depleted Dons