Fortune favours Giants
ANTHONY McDonaldTipungwuti has won games for Essendon off his boot, but on Friday night at Metricon Stadium he could have cost the Bombers one against GWS.
McDonald-Tipungwuti had the chance to stop the Giants in their tracks as they tried to claw back a 29-point deficit.
The cult hero marked the ball in the forward 50, but instead of going back and slotting what would have been a momentum-halting goal, he kicked it to Shaun McKernan who missed.
From there, the Giants went on to claim a stirring fourpoint victory.
IN a week when Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said all the things he hated about soccer — diving and cheap shots — were creeping into footy, Bombers and GWS players did their best to replicate a world game scoreline in the first quarter.
But if it was 2-2 after 20 minutes in a soccer game it would be a thrilling game, the first quarter at Metricon was the complete opposite.
The four behinds was the lowest opening quarter for a VFL/AFL game since Geelong faced Footscray in 1965.
THE second quarter started with a bang when Giants skipper Stephen Coniglio goaled almost immediately.
But then the Bombers reeled off six in a row.
Kyle Langford kicked two, former Giant Dylan Shiel booted one from 55m while Connor McKenna finished with his left as the Bombers got their handball to kick ratio to 1:1 and tore the Giants apart.
Wayne Carey said it was an attitude problem for the star studded Giants.
“They are just expecting to win,” he said on Channel 7.
WHEN Essendon ruckman Sam Draper kicked his first AFL goal early on in the third it looked like the game was done.
But GWS’s star power came to the fore as they battered the Bombers from then on.
Back on the field after a knee injury, Phil Davis said at three-quarter time the Giants needed four goals in the final quarter to snatch the game.
A quick Jeremy Cameron goal to start the final quarter gave them the start they needed, and when Callan Ward kicked their fourth straight with only minutes left in the match, the Giants had snatched it.