Jayden Laverde made a successful return to football in Essendon’s VFL match against Richmond on Saturday.
Coach Paul Corrigan said he was impressed with the impact the forward had on the game in his first outing after missing the first half of the season due to an ankle injury.
“It was really good to see him get through, by all reports he got through the game unscathed,” Corrigan said.
“It was really good to see him out there again and I thought he had an impact at times as a forward.
“Over the next week or two he will only get better as he gets more matches under him and hopefully he gets some consistency over the next month or so.”
Jackson Merrett showed his value in the Dons forward line with a three goal performance. He finished with 11 disposals, three marks and three tackles.
“He has been playing forward the last few weeks,” he said.
“I really feel like he’s given us a bit of a spark up there. He’s a really good runner so he gets up the ground and back really quick.
“He is great at applying forward pressure for us. Today he got a bit of reward with three goals.”
David Myers also impressed, he was the major ball winner for Essendon with 34 disposals, four marks and six tackles.
“Myers was really clean in and around the contest. His ability to also get out of the contest and transition was superb,” Corrigan said.
“He didn’t stop trying all day.”
Although a number of players had strong performances, the consistency wasn’t matched across the whole field.
“The game was inconsistent in terms of performance,” Corrigan said.
“Richmond’s pressure was really good all day. They sustained their effort for four quarters.
“We let ourselves down with our skill and our execution going inside 50.
“We probably just didn’t get that consistent performance from a lot of other guys across the board.”
The Bombers will return to training on Monday and shift their focus to next week’s game against North Ballarat.
“We will make sure the guys recover well and go back and work on the team and individual game plans to make sure that when the pressure does come we are strong and making god decisions with the ball,” he said.
“They’ll continue to work on that through the week and hopefully we see a good response against North Ballarat next week.”
Essendon: 10.14.72
Richmond: 12.8.80
