Essendon must bring effort and attitude if it’s to bounce back against St Kilda, writes Mark Robinson
The reputation and character of Essendon’s players will be determined against St Kilda today and all that fans expect at the very least is effort, writes MARK ROBINSON.
Mark Robinson
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It’s not the norm for Round 2, but today is the day of reckoning for Essendon.
The reputation and character of the players will be determined against St Kilda, and the coach — not for the first time at the Bombers — will be looking for answers.
That’s the fallout from last week’s submissive loss to the Giants.
And because the team was spiritless and lamentable, the fans are angry and confused.
Their hopes were swiped from them in the first 120 minutes of the new season.
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They have just one question: What the hell is wrong with their football club?
The first game hurt because it felt so much like last year, when coach John Worsfold, his players and his game plan were under stress from the get-go.
It turned the corner about Round 8, but last Sunday was like turning another corner and running smack, bang into an oncoming semi-trailer.
At Round 1, good teams are connected, caring and aggressive with their attitude. Win or lose, the expectation at the very least is effort.
Essendon was none of the above against the Giants.
No one has been missed this week.
Jonathan Brown questioned the on-field leadership. Mick McGuane in the Herald Sun questioned tactics and smacked the players. Mark Maclure thought he was Al Capone in the Untouchables, and with baseball bat in hand, took to Worsfold unmercifully.
“I’d be surprised if he lasts the year,” Maclure said.
Terry Wallace was commentating at last week’s game: “Something’s not right. It’s got to embarrassment levels.”
So, how did it get to this?
It’s been an off-season of both excitement and intrigue at Tullarmarine.
They recruited Dylan Shiel. They’d get Joe Daniher back. They’d get a fully fit and focused Aaron Francis and Orazio Fantasia.
Membership was booming, the team’s pillars were care and togetherness and Round 1 couldn’t come quickly enough.
To much acclaim and enthusiasm, they brought in assistant coach Ben Rutten from Richmond, the best pressure side in the competition for two years, to initiate an expanded team defence.
Yet midfielder David Zaharakis said this week: “There’s been no overarching changes to the game plan, I don’t really know where that has come from.”
Clearly, a new game style can’t be an excuse.
There was a streamlining of the leadership group.
It might be only minor, but eyebrows were raised by some players when Daniher retained his spot in the leadership group announced in January after he missed most of last season because of injury.
Out went Cale Hooker and Michael Hurley, who were said to be surprised by the decision.
What did Paul Kelly sing? “From little things big things grow …’’
Daniher’s body management post-Christmas has been a talking point.
He was in the rehab group in January, but got up to play both JLT games. Then he wrecked a calf on the eve of the season. Rushed? Desperate?
You wonder whether the Bombers’ fitness group, led by Justin Crow, have questioned whether that was the best plan.
They also would have asked themselves whether they’d go in with underdone players such as Zach Merrett.
Merrett’s been the poster boy for the media assault this week, but should he have played in the first place?
He’s one of the team’s most committed defensive onballers, yet his lacklustre effort on the back flank became the symbol of Essendon’s lack of effort.
He had limited off-season and reportedly a virus, so that was a punt that didn’t pay off.
McGuane was confused by the deployment of skipper Dyson Heppell to a wing.
Only contested six centre bounces, he noted.
It’s also been noted hard-nut and progressing midfielder, Kyle Langford, who cut his teeth in the middle last year, played half the game at half-forward. He also attended just six centre bounces for the game.
Worsfold doesn’t tag, but perhaps Langford for Stephen Coniglio was an option.
And why did Jake Stringer start in the middle at the first bounce? He’s a flash, he’s not hard-nosed, and they know Langford’s No.1 asset is his stoppage work.
The intrigue continued at selection this week.
Worsfold knows best, but when 20-year-old Jordan Ridley is axed for Darcy Parish after being one of the goers in the demoralising loss, you can ponder the integrity of selection.
Why drop a kid when he lived the supposed trademarks when many others didn’t?
The most intriguing and worrying issue is how a talented team can deliver what they did last Sunday.
What is wrong at the footy club?
There’s a requirement every player brings his own level of competitiveness and attitude, and the coach’s job is to harness all that attitude into a caring, team-first and motivated collective which is invested in the game plan.
The players failed and so did the coach.
Worsfold’s commentary this week, when he queried whether the Bombers’ extended 16-day break had contributed to the white-flag performance, was regarded by some as a feeble excuse.
Cue Maclure: “It’s the most pathetic excuse I have ever heard in my life.”
Much has been said this week, internally and externally, and perhaps Neale Daniher, one of the true fighters, has the best perspective.
“When it’s all said and done, more is said than done,” Daniher once said.
“And the mark of a person or a group of people is not what you say but what you do.”
Originally published as Essendon must bring effort and attitude if it’s to bounce back against St Kilda, writes Mark Robinson
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