Third-quarter blues strike Bombers yet again
IT was the defining moment of the game from a quarter that has summed up Essendon’s faltering start to a 2018 season that is slipping away.
Nineteen minutes into the third term of yesterday’s clash between the Bombers and their old rivals Hawthorn, defender James Sicily took an uncontested grab from a longbomb miskick fired haphazardly into the Essendon attack. What seemed so easy for him was about to get even easier.
Just as Sicily prepared to clear the ball from centre halfback, Joe Daniher gave up a 50m penalty, allowing the best-afield Hawk to within a fluker’s chance of scoring. He was still well outside 50m, but Sicily’s towering 60m kick not only sailed through the goals, it cleared the fence right into the Essendon cheer squad.
That pushed the margin from 11 points out to 17, and essentially that was the ball game. There was no way back for Essendon from that moment on.
The Hawks’ defence completely shut out the Essendon forwards in what was a more lopsided contest than the final margin of 23 points suggests.
It was a whitewash everywhere other than the scoreboard, and having been touted by some pundits as near-certain finalists and maybe even premiership hopes, the Bombers look to be so far removed from that at the moment.
They sit uneasily at 2-5, with their wins over Adelaide and Port Adelaide a distant memory given the way they are playing right now.
Their forward line isn’t functioning at the moment.
Daniher appears sapped of confidence and kicked only a late goal in another disappointing display, while boom recruit Jake Stringer had 11 disposals and failed to kick a goal.
The most remarkable thing in an unremarkable match was that Essendon actually led at halftime by 10 points. But as has happened so often this year, it was another wipe-out during the third term.
Hawthorn kicked 6.3 to 0.1 in that term to push the Essendon differential in third quarters to minus 136 points – a woeful return, the worst in the AFL at the moment.
That third-term wasteland left them on five goals to three-quarter-time. It mattered little the Bombers outscored the Hawks by five goals to three in the final term – the game was done and dusted.
Sicily was superb across halfback and was clearly the most influential player on the field. If he stays out of trouble, he could well be an All Australian backman of the future.