 07-31-2008, 12:32 PM |
| Rookie Analyst Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 10
vCash: 500 |  Tough task for Melbourne
| Melbourne are faced with an uphill challenge if they are thinking of beating Essendon this Saturday afternoon at the MCG.
Essendon have claimed recently to be doing it tough and only had 25 players to pick from with such a large injury list. Their injury crisis hasn’t seemed to have stopped the rampant Bombers however from their winning ways.
After round 11, the Bomber’s were sitting with two wins and staring down the barrel of yet another dismal season. Questions were being asked of some of the list and where the team was going to go from here.
Since then, Essendon have claimed five wins from their last six games losing only to Richmond, who have been in some pretty damaging form themselves, also winning five of their last six.
Whilst the Bombers aren’t going to make the finals this year (though mathematically they still can) there have been some encouraging signs to show that the team will go forward in the future.
Essendon are currently shouldering the load evenly through the team and have had many players contribute to their mid season resurgence. Young players such as Leroy Jetta, David Myers, Tayte Pears and Kyle Reimers and Bachar Houli have proved themselves to be players of the future.
Players such as Jobe Watson, Andrew Welsh, Mark McVeigh and David Hille have stepped up and played major parts in the last six games, whilst captain Matthew Lloyd has rediscovered some form showing that his career isn’t finished yet.
While Essendon look at the light and wonder why they couldn’t perform in the first half of the season, things look pretty bleak down at Demonland. Not only confined to onfield hiccups, off the field Melbourne have changed boards, changed presidents and sacked a CEO. Melbourne are going to have some tough decisions to make at the end of the year with some players, one-time big names such as Jeff White and Adam Yze look to be in the firing line.
It’s hard to find much going for the Dees going into this weekend’s clash. An interesting note, and maybe giving Melbourne a glimmer of hope, is that after quarter time, Melbourne outscored North Melbourne by two goals. However, Melbourne’s first quarter failure against the Roos certainly was not evident the week before at Subiaco against Fremantle. In Perth, the Dees were up by 29 points at quarter time, three quarters later they had lost by 46 points.
Essendon are going into the game as heavy favourites (a footy bet on them paying around $1.20) and taking into account the two sides’ recent form one can hardly argue with the bookies’ odds.
Essendon should account for Melbourne on Saturday and keep their fans saying, if only and why couldn’t we do this earlier this year. __________________ Andy Morris, Betfair AFL bet journalist |  | | |
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