Worsfold to keep faith with Daniher
ESSENDON won’t be taking the big sticks to Joe Daniher.
The young forward wasn’t dumped in front of goal and forced to kick a wheelie bin full of footies at training yesterday.
Instead, it was business as usual, with coach John Worsfold keeping faith in Daniher’s training methods and routine, confident the 1.6 and one out on the full he scored against Melbourne was an aberration.
“It’s about consistency of practice and focus on what he’s working on,” Worsfold said.
“It was a one- off event, in terms of ( a) really inaccurate display.
“Part of what Joe’s doing is putting a program together to improve his kicking and that’s over the course of the next eight years.
“He’ll continue to do that, he won’t stop working on get- ting better as a player. I’ll be saying stick to the program that he’s got in place, which is around improving him and keep working at it and believing in it.
“When you try new things you often go through a period where it feels a bit uncomfortable and it’s a bit harder, but the champions keep working at it and come through that a lot better.”
Worsfold also backed his forward’s body language after Daniher was criticised for smiling after he finally kicked a goal and then for hugging former teammate turned Demon Michael Hibberd.
“He can hug as many people as he wants if he’s playing good footy … I wasn’t a hugger myself, but we’re all different,” Worsfold said.
Worsfold expected Jobe Watson to make the trip to Perth to take on Fremantle, in- sisting the former captain will let him know when he’s ready for a rest.
Watson had just 13 touches in the Bombers loss to Melbourne after the five- day break from an emphatic Anzac Day performance.
“Our feeling is that Jobe was fully recovered, he just had a quiet game ( against Melbourne) ... but we’re confident that he’s right and ready to go,” he said.
“... If he felt as though his energy levels weren’t going to get him up to be able to perform at a level he wants to we would look at resting him for sure.
“Jobe will have an idea of how he’s feeling, which is a pretty good judge for us, but we also collect a lot of data around how they recover.”
Worsfold confirmed Mitch Brown’s ankle injury would sideline him for six weeks.