Bombers to tackle pressure points
THE senior players at Essendon are firmly in the sights of club officials after they “retreated” in Saturday’s horror loss to Sydney and were accused of lacking the ruthless streak necessary to become a legitimate finals contender.
Essendon is no chance of returning to the finals in 2022 following the 58-point loss to the Swans, languishing in 16th spot on the AFL ladder with just two wins for the season and question marks over a bunch of big names.
Players including Dylan Shiel are among those being questioned and Essendon football boss Josh Mahoney conceded there would be some “hard questions” asked this week ahead of a Saturday night clash with Richmond.
Mahoney said there was too much evidence of senior players failing to “stand up” this season that was having a big impact on their young playing list.
“We have to continually look at training, continually look at how we can build the resilience in our playing group. When things aren’t going well, who are the players that are going to stand up?” Mahoney said in the wake of the loss to the Swans.
“We spoke a lot after the game about our senior players, we need them standing up at the moment. We have a lot of young guys playing and they need to be shown the right way.
“The right way is when times are tough … we need people to stand up. We’ve seen too many opportunities this year where we haven’t done that. Under any sort of pressure we have retreated.”
Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said on Monday that Essendon players had
wilted every time the pressure went up.
“When the pressure is on you either crack or you stand up. When the pressure comes on, they just haven’t been a club that can stick fat, knuckle down and grind their way out of it,” he told SEN.
“There is an opportunity to do that now. They don’t need to make finals, but they need to lock in and grind themselves out of this moment by moment. It’s going to be investment on and off the field by everyone that’s got a red sash.
“They’ve lost their mojo, they’ve lost their way and they need to find it.”
One of the standout statistics from last Saturday’s game was the dismal 30 tackles laid by the Bombers, with five players failing to register a single tackle.
Mahoney said that demanded attention beyond the normal post-game review and hard conversations were a must this week.
“Tackling numbers have been down this year. Teams are playing a kick-mark game against us and making us defend, but there are also opportunities to tackle we are missing,” he said.
“The only thing we can do now is get back to training, have a look at the way we played. The players are going to have some hard conversations this week which they need to have.”