Essendon v. Port Adelaide

Tonight's game at Ethiad Stadium against Port Adelaide was always going to be an interesting one from an Essendon perspective. With our shot at finals over for this year the coaches have been playing the "Baby Bombers" for the past couple weeks, which has brought some much needed excitement and energy to the team. Dyson Heppell, currently acting as captain with Jobe Watson out injured for the rest of the season, was celebrating his 100th game. In addition, we had the return of two popular former Essendon players now with Port Adelaide- Angus Monfries and Paddy Ryder, who was facing his old side for the first time.

Essendon got off to a fantastic start by scoring 6 goals in the first quarter, but unfortunately in the second we couldn't kick through the middle and had eight behinds to just 2 goals. Although we were down 8 points at halftime, we managed to come back to life in the third quarter and tie up the game heading into the final term. However, Paddy Ryder managed to kick a few goals in the fourth quarter (despite boos from the crowd every time he touched the ball throughout the game) and although we got on a couple runs and clawed the score back to be in touch, Port managed to kick away and win by 13 points. It was a disappointing loss due to some questionable umpire calls and skill errors in defense, but it's good to see the young Bombers starting to play well and give us some hope for the future.

Final Score
Essendon: 17.14 (116)
Port Adelaide: 20.9 (129)

NAB Challenge: Essendon v. Port Adelaide

Can you believe that the footy is already back?  This year the AFL has created an 18 day carnival of footy with the NAB Challenge (aka preseason).  Tonight was our first opportunity to see Essendon play in town so I brought Leilani along to Etihad Stadium for her initial foray into Aussie Rules.

Essendon started the game well against Port Adelaide although we kept missing shots on goal and getting behinds.  The second quarter was a shocker and Port soon took the lead.  This is the preseason so you'd expect some mistakes but it was as if many of the players forgot even basic hand balling skills. The amount of times we kicked the ball to the opponent was very frustrating.  By the end even Lei was yelling at the players and completely over it like the rest of us.

This was the first game back for several of our veteran players, including new Geelong recruit Paul Chapman.  It was also nice to see former player Angus Monfries on the field again, and he sealed our defeat with a goal after the siren.  Hopefully this poor game will wake up the players to the fact they have a lot of work to do before the season starts in a couple weeks.

Final Score
Essendon: 0.9.11 (65)
Port Adelaide: 1.11.15 (90)