AFL 2021 Essendon v Adelaide: Bombers blitz leaves lacklustre Crows with unenviable records
Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti was involved in a sickening collision with a Crow, who has revealed the Bomber reached out to him post-game.
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Adelaide defender Tom Doedee has revealed how Essendon’s Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti reached out to check on his welfare following their sickening front-on collision on Friday night.
The pair were involved in an accidental clash at Marvel Stadium as Doedee went back with the flight of the ball and McDonald-Tipungwuti crashed into him when attempting to mark in the forward line.
Doedee was subbed out of the game just after quarter-time, but explained how McDonald-Tipungwuti tried to seek assurances about his welfare immediately after the Bombers’ 63-point victory.
“Shoutout to Tippa (McDonald-Tipungwuti) for checking in with me straight after the game, genuine legend,” Doedee tweeted.
Appreciate all the concern and thoughts â¤ï¸
— Tom Doedee (@TDoedee31) July 9, 2021
Feeling great besides a sore chest. Didn’t think someone would be leading up at the ball, found out the hard way someone was though 😬
Shoutout to Tippa for checking in with me straight after the game, genuine legend
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The Crows backman said he had pulled up surprisingly well after the incident, despite being subbed out of the game with what the club said was a concussion.
“Feeling great besides a sore chest,” Doedee explained. “Didn’t think someone would be leading up at the ball, found out the hard way someone was though.
“Appreciate all the concern and thoughts.”
The incident prompted plenty of discussion about the fine line between courage and unnecessary risk, with Triple M’s Nathan Brown saying Doedee had been “stupid brave.”
Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said he felt sick watching Doedee go back with the flight.
“I’m not sure that ball’s ever there to go for,” Nicks said.
“Tommy’s so courageous, (so) to tell him to stop doing that, we’d take away what’s been his weapon to this point in his short career.
“He loves the contest, he embraces physicality, he wants to put his body on the line for his team – it’s just a matter of when and where,
“At the time I was praying that he would pull out. It’s a tough one.”
PERKINS DEFEATS CROWS
Archie Perkins 3.3 (21) drew with Adelaide 2.9 (21).
In matching the Crows’ paltry scoreline on Friday night – the worst in the club’s history and the worst ever in 22 seasons of matches at Marvel Stadium – the Bombers’ young gun went a long way to booking this week’s Rising Star nomination.
It also gave us a glimpse into why leading footy analyst David King believes Perkins is the best of the exciting new batch of Baby Bombers – including Nik Cox and Harrison Jones – saying he has a hint of former Geelong star Paul Chapman in his make-up.
It’s an interesting debate.
Cox and Jones received their Rising Star noms in Rounds 12 and 14, which would mean the Bombers would have three weekly gongs in six rounds if Perkins gets this week’s nod – a huge feat for the club.
The versatile Cox is on a pathway towards being a star, Jones looks to have a big upside and Zach Reid’s first season was marred by glandular fever and a season-ending back injury.
As good as that trio looks, King believes Perkins might yet end up being the pick of the bunch, saying: “The best youngster at the Bombers is Archie Perkins, IMO. Paul Chapman-type attributes with a healthy football confidence. Love him.”
Perkins, last year’s No. 9 national draft pick, could easily have finished the game with more goals.
He missed a couple he could have nailed, but his signature banana goal from the boundary line, his long bombs and his growing confidence thrilled Essendon fans.
Perkins has a hard edge about him as well, which coach Ben Rutten loves.
Rutten admitted he had been considering giving Perkins and Cox a rest in recent weeks after a few quiet matches, but was pleased he stuck with them for the Crows’ clash.
Perkins had 18 disposals, 338 metres gained and 22 pressure acts, laying a couple of big tackles. Cox had 19 touches, 277 metres gained and four tackles.
The Swans have the most Rising Star nominations this season. Melbourne has had three, while Perkins would take Essendon’s tally to three, which would be the first time the Bombers have had that many weekly nominations in a season since 2009.
DONS INACCURACY
Getting more bang for their forward 50 buck was one of Essendon’s main themes leading into the Crows’ clash, but this area still requires plenty of work for Ben Rutten and his men.
A tally of 11.18 could easily have been 18.11 and the 4.7% boost to their percentage could have almost doubled if Essendon had been cleaner close to goal.
The Bombers had a +30 differential in forward 50 entries – 61 to 31 – and had as many in the first half as the Crows had for the entire game.
They did have 13 marks inside 50, two more than their season average, which was a big positive, but too often good chances for goal went begging with bad kicking.
The forward pressure would also have pleased Rutten, with the Bombers having 20 tackles inside 50 – almost double their season average.
FRIDAY NIGHT SNOOZEFEST
The floating fixture that Covid created was something that was meant to deliver cracking Friday night blockbusters.
But while we have been spoiled in recent weeks, this week’s Essendon-Adelaide clash was a snoozefest.
In fairness, the AFL did try to fixture the Western Bulldogs-Sydney clash on Friday night, but the AFLPA ruled it was too tough on the Bulldogs coming off a five-day break, even though the club saw the positives in playing in prime time.
SO … YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE?
How many games do the Bombers need to win in the run home to elevate themselves in the finals?
It depends on what happens around then, but if Rutten’s team can win five of the next six games, they could well be playing in September.
Three of those games look very winnable – against North Melbourne, Gold Coast and Collingwood. The Bombers would surely have a good chance against GWS and Sydney as well, while they would go into the Western Bulldogs clash as clear outsiders.
How Rutten must be rueing those three heartbreaking losses – by a point to Hawthorn in Round 1, by three points against Sydney in Round 4 and two points against GWS in Round 8!
STRINGER’S FORM CONTINUES
Rutten joked this week that Jake Stringer might need to sign his much-talked new deal before the Bombers’ money ran out.
Given his form across the past month, surely there is still enough money in the kitty.
After recent big deals locking in Darcy Parish and Zach Merrett, the focus has clearly switched to 27-year-old Stringer, who wants to stay but wants a lucrative four-year-contract.
The truth is the two parties equally need each other.
Stringer, who played his 150th game on Friday night, looks at home in his fourth season in red and black, with his form this season playing a key role in the club’s fortunes.
While he wasn’t quite as damaging on Friday night as he had been across the past month, he was still one of the club’s leading performers with 23 disposals, 562 metres gained and a goal, thriving on the extra midfield minutes.
Stringer said after the game: “I’ve found a good balance with (playing) midfield and forward. Credit to ‘Truck’ (Rutten) and all the boys for having a bit of faith and hopefully I am repaying it.
“At the time (it) is probably more than 50/50 (mid/forward split), it is more 60/40 or 70/30.”
“My legs are slowly getting used to it.”
Dons’ finals hopes alive after Friday night fizzer
Essendon’s faint finals hopes still have a pulse after a Zach Merrett masterclass and an Archie Perkins audition for the next Rising Star nomination saw the Bombers make easy work of Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.
In a game hardly befitting a prime-time Friday night timeslot, the Bombers registered their seventh win and kept the Crows to their lowest ever scoreline.
Adelaide’s return of 2.9 (21) was also the lowest tally in a game from any club in 22 seasons of football at Docklands.
The 63-point victory over an awful Adelaide keeps Essendon within striking distance of eighth-placed Greater Western Sydney as well as finals hopefuls Richmond, Fremantle, St Kilda and Carlton just outside.
It boosted their percentage by 4.7% — from 98.7% to 103.4% — but it could have been so much more but for some inaccurate kicking for goal and some wayward forward entries.
That would have been one of the few things that would have disappointed coach Ben Rutten, along with a hamstring injury to Kyle Langford.
But Rutten praised his team’s defensive effort in restricting the Crows to such a low score.
“I thought tonight in particular without (Dyson) Heppell, who’s been a leader of the footy club back there and a good communicator, I thought … all the defenders picked up the slack there and we were looking pretty solid behind the ball most of the night,” Rutten said.
The result put the Bombers two points outside the top eight heading into the weekend, but Rutten insisted he hadn’t thought too much about the prospect of his emerging team challenging for an unlikely finals berth.
“It was another step forward in our journey and where we want to get to,” he said.
“Now it’s about consolidating that and continue to develop and evolve and embed the way we want to play and turn up and show up from an attitude point of view, defensive point of view, attacking point of view.
“(Before the season started) I wasn’t sure on where we were going to get to (at the end of the year) and that was exciting – I knew we had a lot of improvement in us and we still do.”
In Essendon’s favour in its late push for an unlikely finals berth is their fixture in the run home. They will take on last-placed North Melbourne next week before clashes with the Giants, Sydney, Western Bulldogs, Gold Coast (at Metricon Stadium) and Collingwood to round out the home-and-away season.
The margin for error remains small and they will have to rely on other teams slipping up, but the fervour of the Bombers’ song in the rooms on Friday night showed they think their season is very much alive.
Merrett was outstanding, with 35 disposals, while Perkins put his name forward to receive the weekly nomination for Rising Star after kicking three goals in an impressive display.
“The biggest thing we’ve liked about his season is his ability to pressure and tackle and his real thirst for the contest,” Rutten said of Perkins post-match.
Other than an opening 20-minute stalemate in the first term where both teams failed to kick a goal, it was a complete red and black domination as the Bombers dined on the Crows.
An early bone-rattling collision between Adelaide’s Tom Doedee and Essendon’s Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti rocked Marvel Stadium and had some questioning the difference between exceptional courage and unnecessary risk.
Doedee went back with the flight of the ball, almost oblivious of anything that was coming in his direction.
McDonald-Tipungwuti launched himself at the ball in an attempt to mark, and he crashed into Doedee like a freight-train.
Both players hit the turf as the crowd rose in a mix of anticipation and fear for their safety.
Dodee came off the worse for wear and was taken from the field by trainers before heading straight down into the rooms for a concussion test.
He was swiftly subbed out of the game.
“That was just stupid brave,” Triple M’s Nathan Brown said after the collision, with Luke Darcy adding: “As brave as it is, it is just not smart.”
The night belonged to the Bombers as they won every quarter and kept their flickering finals hopes alive.
Match report: Bomber blitz turns into horror show for Crows
—Ronny Lerner
Adelaide’s season has hit rock bottom after they were held to the lowest score in their history by a far superior Essendon outfit at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.
The Crows’ score of 2.9.21 was also the lowest ever recorded at the Docklands venue in 971 games and 22 seasons.
It was a dirty night for the Crows on a historic level as they were also held to their lowest ever quarter-time, halftime and three-quarter time scores against Essendon, on the way to suffering their second-worst loss to the Bombers, and their biggest defeat against them in 26 years.
The Bombers kept their finals hopes alive with the effortless dismantling of a woefully lacklustre Adelaide who were non-competitive for large parts of the match.
And if Essendon kicked straighter in front of goal, the final margin probably would’ve been greater than 63 points.
After a horrible first quarter, which failed to produce a goal for 23 minutes, despite the game being played in perfect conditions, the Bombers quickly asserted themselves as the superior outfit in the second term.
The hosts kicked the first five goals of the contest, including a pair of long bombs from young gun Archie Perkins, to take total control of the game and swiftly put paid to any semblance of resistance the Crows were offering.
The Crows almost tripled the Bombers for clangers (16-6) in the first term — they would finish the game with 62 to Essendon’s 43 — and failed to kick their first major of the game until an hour after the first bounce.
Not only were Adelaide beaten up around the ball in the midfield, but played a predictable brand of footy as they refused to move the ball forward with any fluency, making life for Essendon’s defenders very easy.
The Bombers had a whopping 19 more inside 50s (31-12) in the first half, and ended up smashing the Crows in that category 61-30, as they effortlessly kicked further ahead after halftime to complete a comprehensive victory.
The result saw the Bombers get within two points of the top eight heading into the weekend, but Ben Rutten’s team will probably have to win five of their last six games to give themselves a genuine chance of September action and with tough encounters against GWS, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs awaiting in their run home, they’ll certainly be made to earn it.
DOEDEE CLEANED UP
Tom Doedee had to be subbed off in the first quarter due to concussion after being involved in a spectacular collision with Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti in Essendon’s forward pocket. Doedee came off second best as he flew back with the flight of the ball, and got cannoned into by the Essendon forward coming the other way.
DRAPER GOES FOR A GALLOP
Sam Draper set the crowd alight early in the second quarter when he burst clear of the traffic on the wing and took a bounce, but the excitement quickly dissipated when he hacked it forward with an indiscriminate mongrel punt, capping off a curious couple of minutes for the raw ruckman who failed to make the distance from a set shot 35m out beforehand.
NO TEX, NO CROWS
Adelaide struggled to win the ball in the middle of the ground, and even on the odd occasion when they did manage to get the ball forward, the absence of injured forward Taylor Walker was telling. Without a genuine focal point in attack, the Crows stood no chance of kicking a big score.
SCOREBOARD
BOMBERS 2.5 6.8 9.12 11.18 (84)
CROWS 0.2 1.3 2.7 2.9 (21)
LERNER’S BEST
Bombers: Merrett, Hind, Langford, Parish, Perkins, Snelling, Redman.
Crows: Laird, Jones, Seedsman.
GOALS
Bombers: Perkins 3, Wright 2, Hooker, Stringer, Waterman, Jones, McDonald-Tipungwuti, Snelling.
Crows: Schoenberg, Murphy.
INJURIES
Bombers: Langford (hamstring).
Crows: Doedee (concussion), Seedsman (calf)
LATE CHANGE
Elliott Himmelberg (illness) was replaced in Adelaide’s selected side by Will Hamill.
UMPIRES
Deboy, Chamberlain, Whetton
VENUE
Marvel Stadium
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
LERNER’S VOTES
3 Z.Merrett (Ess)
2 N.Hind (Ess)
1 K.Langford (Ess)
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Originally published as AFL 2021 Essendon v Adelaide: Bombers blitz leaves lacklustre Crows with unenviable records
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