Essendon’s post-Christmas surge rewarded with Premier Cricket finals return
Seven wins since new year and four bonus points has seen Essendon surge into Premier Cricket finals and there’s a simple message for the young Bombers.
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Essendon will enter Saturday’s elimination final against Footscray in red-hot form.
The Bombers’ post-Christmas surge was rewarded on Saturday with eighth-place and a return to Premier Cricket finals.
A 77-run win over Melbourne University was the club’s seventh win in 10 games since new year and fourth bonus point.
Essendon travels to Merv Hughes Oval for a sudden-death clash with the Bulldogs, which they beat by 72-runs just a month ago.
Footscray did its opponent a huge favour by beating Northcote, allowing the Bombers to jump up to eighth, in a thrilling climax to the home-and-away season.
After Saturday’s win at University Oval, Essendon coach Ash Cavigan told his players to enjoy the experience.
“(The message) was soak up the experience,” he said.
“We have so many young guys in the team, three or four in their first season of First XI cricket, it was well earnt and they’ll enjoy playing in a finals series.
“(Saturday) was like a final for us, if we didn’t win we didn’t make it, so we talked about soaking that up and enjoying the experience.
“We touched on some of the victories we’ve had and how we’ve won in different ways.
“We’ve won batting first, we’ve won batting second, we’ve been able to come back from tough situations and win in different ways.”
Footscray did its elimination final opponent a huge favour by beating Northcote, which allowed the Bombers to jump up to eighth.
Michael Hill top scored for Essendon with 64 from 76 balls and a 73-run partnership with Farzan Chowna (29) helped the visitors reach 8-193.
The Bombers new ball wrecking balls Tom O’Donnell and newly-capped Victoria quick Cam McClure then went to work on the Students’ top order.
Melbourne University were 6-23 as O’Donnell (4-19) and McClure (4-20) sent a warning to Footscray.
Cavigan said the pair were among the best opening pair in the competition.
“Tommy O’Donnell has been building up to that one – his last month, he’s bowled really well without luck,” Cavigan said.
“Cam’s taken his game to another level, he had a good week in the one-dayers with Victoria.
“Those two up front, I would dare to say are as good as anyone if not the best two in the competition right now with the new ball.
“We were really confident if those two guys bowled well up front we could get into their top order and put some pressure on.”
After critical runs with the ball Chowna also showed his quality in the field, running out Harrison Emms from fine leg trying to steal a second run and taking a brilliant diving catch after the ball ricocheted off McClure in his bowling follow-through.
However, Essendon now faces a selection headache.
Ryan Stingel missed Saturday’s win due to work commitments and is expected to return on Saturday with young gun James O’Donnell likely to miss out.
It would be extremely harsh on the promising all-rounder after playing all bar one game this season.
Having surged home and achieved what many thought was impossible this season, Cavigan doesn’t want his players to rest on their laurels.
“It’s definitely something in my mind – it’s one thing to get there but you want to win a final,” he said.
“It’s definitely a huge motivation for us – (the home-and-away season) is done now and we start another little tournament.
“Our attitude is everyone starts from zero now, one-day cricket it doesn’t matter where you are, anything can happen from here.
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“That’s the good thing about having young guys in your team – there’s no real scars, no skeletons lurking in the closet – they just go out and play with freedom.
“It’s definitely not ‘we made it, great, no one expected us to’, we earnt the right to be there.”
In a move to get through the finals series, the semi-finals will be played on Sunday.
It means the qualifying final losers and elimination final winners will have to back-up the following day.
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