Essendon faces must-win clash in home-and-away season final round
Win and hope, that’s the situation for Essendon heading into the final round of the Premier Cricket home-and-away season after another James Seymour masterclass.
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Essendon faces a do-or-die clash against Prahran next weekend in the final round of the Premier Cricket home-and-away season.
The Bombers kept their finals hopes alive on Saturday with a strong 74-run victory over fellow finals contender Dandenong at Windy Hill.
Essendon has now won five of its past five games to sit just three points behind eighth-placed Melbourne University and six points behind St Kilda in fifth.
Prahran will be a tough ask with the True Blues sitting third.
The Bombers have already beaten top-four teams Melbourne and Fitzroy Doncaster this season and coach Ash Cavigan said it would be tough to swallow missing finals.
“When we do play our best cricket it stands up against the best in the competition.
“We need some results to go our way I guess … we just had that bad month at the front end but since then our cricket has been pretty good.
“We’ve beaten Melbourne, Fitzroy, Geelong and now Dandenong who are above us and if we can beat Prahran that will give us two more wins than last season.
“It will be a bitter one if we don’t get there because we will have won more games and beaten four or five teams above us. It would be hard to digest.”
James Seymour’s third century of the campaign inspired the bonus point win over the Panthers.
The star opener now has 820 runs this season at an incredible average of 102.50 and is among the favourites for a second straight Ryder Medal.
Critical 76-run and 48-run partnerships with Donovan Toohey (27) and Tom O’Donnell (29) helped the Bombers post 6-223.
“(Late-order runs) that’s been a real growth area for us this year, it’s something we identified at the start of the season,” Cavigan said.
“Donovan can bat, he’s one of those guys – there’s lots in the competition – with the one-day format that are batting No.7 or 8 that can be quite hard given the opportunity.
“At the start of the season he didn’t know which way to go but he’s adapted to that and he’s found a way to play that role.
“Same with Tom O’Donnell, he’s worked really hard on his batting and has put together some really handy 20s and 30s batting at No.8-9.
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“It’s given Jimmy someone to bat with at the back end, we’ve been able to get those partnerships that can be the difference between 190 to 220 that can win you the game.”
O’Donnell (2-27) got the early breakthroughs with the ball, dismissing Brett Forsyth for one and Panthers skipper Tom Donnell for 15.
Seymour backed up his performance with the bat with 2-11, while Cam McClure (2-30) and Liam Bowe (2-35) also collected braces as Dandenong were dismissed for 149.
With Essendon needing results to go its way, Melbourne University travels to last-placed Kingston Hawthorn, St Kilda faces 17th-placed Frankston Peninsula, Dandenong welcomes 16th-placed Greenvale and Northcote travels to Geelong.
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