Essendon can re-ignite its season against Carlton in must-win game, writes Matthew Lloyd

ESSENDON is hopelessly out of form and lost for answers, and the Bombers will be close to rock bottom if they can’t beat Carlton, but MATTHEW LLOYD has some solutions to re-ignite their season.

The Bombers need Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti’s explosiveness. Picture: Alex Coppel

IT IS a lonely place, the AFL, when you are hopelessly out of form and seem lost for answers.

The Essendon Football Club is all of the above and if, the Bombers haven’t already hit rock bottom, it will stare them in they face on Saturday at 5pm if they cannot beat the bottom placed and winless Carlton at the MCG.

The Bombers’ issues are both structural and performance-based with the players losing both concentration and confidence as each game has progressed over the last three weeks.

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Each player’s role needs to be clarified and simplified because of the indecision and confusion that the Essendon players have played with.

In saying that, structure and role-playing needs to become secondary to passion, heart and desire which seems lost at Essendon.

Where was the comeradere and brotherhood for Kobe Mutch last Saturday when he kicked his first goal in AFL football?

It was non-existent which suggested to me that Essendon was playing like a team with an every man for himself mentality which have gone insular due to a lack of belief and confidence.

That is the nicest way of putting it, but you could also come to the conclusion that Essendon are not as united as they could or should be.

Why the lack of care and affection for Mutch in a moment he will never forget and why the blow-ups on Anzac Day when the game was lost and the pressure from Collingwood all got too much for them?

Kobe Mutch kicked his first AFL goal last week but not many teammates went to colebrate with him. Picture: Michael Klein

Some support for Zach Merrett when he is getting tagged every week wouldn’t go astray either.

Ask Cameron Ling what the good sides did to him when he looked to take out their best player every week. Ling couldn’t walk for a couple of days afterwards. Enough said.

OK, time to stop looking in the rear-view mirror. It’s time to look forward with Saturday’s must-win game against the Blues.

The turnaround has to start in the midfield, to stop the ball living in the Bombers’ defensive half of the ground.

The Bombers get the ball inside forward 50m less than any other side in the AFL. That’s right, less than Carlton, Brisbane and St Kilda.

Essendon’s midfield mix has to change.

The Bombers are ranked bottom four in the midfield for both contested possession and ground balls, which limits the team’s ability to get the ball inside 50m and then lock it in.

Dyson Heppell, Zach Merrett and David Zaharakis pick themselves in the midfield but to add more speed and become dynamic, it would be great to see Orazio Fantasia and Anthony Tipungwuti have quick bursts in the midfield each quarter.

The Bombers have looked slow and have lacked depth in comparison to their opposing midfields in recent weeks.

Devon Smith is vital in the Bombers’ forward line. Picture: Getty Images

One name I left out of that midfield group is Devon Smith.

Smith will have his time in the middle where he has played some great football this year, but he now becomes of greater importance in Essendon’s front half.

Essendon cannot lock the ball inside forward 50 with the personal it has and Smith is the No.1 pressure player in the AFL, so it makes perfect sense.

Smith is ranked the No.1 forward 50 pressure player at Essendon, which is an indictment on the others considering the limited time he has spent there.

Essendon is crying out for pressure players inside their forward 50 and Smith is the man. McDonald-Tipungwuti needs to be told in no uncertain terms what is expected of him.

The manic Tippa of 2017 needs to return, rather than have the one that has floated through most of the 2018 season with no urgency.

With Joe Daniher out for at least a month with injury, it gives Essendon the opportunity to play smaller in the forward line with Smith, Tipungwuti and Fantasia at the feet of the mobile James Stewart and Shaun McKernan. I would keep Cale Hooker in defence.

Zach Merrett needs support in midfield. Picture: Michael Klein

The backs have been under enormous pressure because of the midfield’s inability to get the ball going their way.

The opposition’s forward-half press has also caused Essendon all sorts of problems, which the rest of the competition is well aware of.

It was slow and indecisive ball movement against Collingwood off the half-back line and handballing at nauseum against Hawthorn which created all sorts of problems.

Essendon must hold a forward structure ahead of the ball in this situation to have options to kick to and find a greater balance between when to attack the press and when to show composure in waiting for an option to open up.

The leaders in defence — Michael Hurley, Hooker and Brendon Goddard — must defend first and attack second, not vice-versa.

There has been too much uncontested possession in defence for not much gain of late.

John Worsfold was stoic in his defence of Hurley during the week after criticism from Paul Roos and while he has had plenty of good moments within games, Hurley has lost 44 per cent of his one-on-one contests this season.

Only seven-game defender Aaron Naughton of the Bulldogs has lost more among all the key defenders in the AFL so an adjustment has to be made to Hurley’s game.

Essendon’s defensive coach Mark Harvey was as tough as they came in his playing days and it’s time this current defensive group turned back the clock and got nasty.

Defend for your lives first, and your ability to create will stem from that.

The time has come for greater accountability at Essendon right across the board, from the CEO to the coaches, the players, the boot studder.

The importance of Saturday’s game cannot be understated.

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