Essendon’s Devon Smith on David Myers’ kick, Dyson Heppell’s smile and Dane Rampe’s post climb
It was the major talking point out of Essendon’s loss to Sydney on Friday and Bombers midfielder Devon Smith says Dane Rampe’s post climb should have resulted in a free-kick. EXCLUSIVE COLUMN.
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If you had to take a straw poll on which teammate the Essendon players would want with the ball in hand to win a game after the siren, there’s little doubt most of us would choose David Myers.
He’s a booming kick and that’s why we were hopeful when he found himself in that exact situation against Sydney at the SCG on Friday night, even though he was around 65m out from goal.
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It was always going to take a very good kick, and ‘Myersy’ gave it his best shot, even though it ultimately fell short.
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The reality is that games are decided on many small moments, and as a team, we shouldn’t have been relying on one kick to get us over the line against the Swans, who probably outplayed us on the night.
Full credit to Sydney, and full credit to ‘Myersy’ for having a crack at what was a very difficult kick.
I asked him in the rooms whether he had considered trying a torpedo, instead of a drop-punt, and his reasoning was sound. His answer — “I can’t kick a torpedo with these mangled hands”.
He’s had a number of issues with his hands over the years, meaning he can kick a drop punt further than he can with a torpedo these days.
We don’t kick too many torps these days anyway, but if ‘Myersy’ couldn’t make the distance on Friday night, then I doubt anyone else in our team could have done so.
As a team, we got around him after the game, and made sure he was OK, and that led to some ridiculous criticism of Dyson Heppell as the pair were captured having a little laugh after the final siren.
I don’t like to give these things any oxygen because they don’t deserve any, other than to say that Dyson is an absolute warrior for our team.
If you are going to question how much he is hurting, then you don’t know anything about what makes him tick.
He was just getting around a teammate — as any good captain should — and trying to tell him to move forward and remain positive.
As players, we hurt when we lose. To suggest anything otherwise is ridiculous.
‘Myersy’ has been around for 12 years now, so he and a lot of the boys at Bomberland have been through some tough situations. They have a hard turtle shell on their backs in dealing with adversity, but we woke up yesterday, the sun’s still shining and we’ve got a game against Fremantle to start preparing for.
RAMPE’S RIDE ON THE POST
Dane Rampe is one of the most underrated defenders in my eye, probably one of the best three or four in the competition, I reckon.
I didn’t see him climb the goalpost when ‘Myersy’ had the ball after the siren, but Jake Stringer didn’t miss it, telling the goal umpire and the field umpires it wasn’t allowed.
I had no idea that the rules stated that it should have been a free kick to us because Dane had climbed the post.
The AFL ticked it off on Saturday, saying Dane was warned and told to get off the post — which he did.
Look, I don’t want to make a big issue about it, as we shouldn’t have put ourselves in a position to lose the game, but by the letter of the rules as I’ve since found out, we should have got a free kick.
THE 100M PENALTY
The 100m penalty rule remains a contentious one, and most of the players and fans are still confused with it eight rounds into the season.
Jake Stringer and I gave one away during the third term which cost us a goal — and we ended up losing by five points.
So that was frustrating, but this is one of those rules that has divided people.
At the end of the day, you can’t be a sprinkler and just pop down into the ground. It is very hard to get out of the way, but I will look at the vision and see how I get better if that situation presents again.
Next time I actually get a 50m penalty, I will be running at someone, trying to initiate a bit of contact.
Players are smarter at trying to manipulate the rules these days, and it happens with the sliding rule, so players have to adapt to it.
GOING FORWARD
We just didn’t play anywhere near our best footy against Sydney, and couldn’t get our offensive game going at any stage.
The coach’s message after the game was that we have to get better as a team, and as individuals.
We were really good against Collingwood, and in many respects, probably should’ve won the game. But we’ve been poor against Geelong and Sydney in the past two weeks.
Footy can turn pretty quickly, and I’m confident we can regroup and keep moving forward.
We’ll sit down on Monday, do the reviews of the Sydney loss and move on quickly to Saturday night’s clash with the Dockers at Marvel Stadium.
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