Star Essendon onballer Dylan Shiel says the Bombers are beginning to show signs of the high-level football the club always knew they were capable of.
The former Giant received offers from a number of clubs in the off-season, but he ultimately chose to settle at The Hangar with the chance to join the emerging Essendon squad known for its exciting brand of football.
That scintillating style and impressive grit has been at the forefront of the side’s sensational recent form, seeing the Bombers claim seven wins from its last nine outings including four on the trot.
“We’re certainly starting to show and play that type of footy the club knows it is capable of,” Shiel said on RSN on Thursday.
“In terms of what the club had told me and what I’d seen and made a judgment of, it’s good that we’ve been playing a lot of that type of footy of late.”
Shiel credited an improved structure and ongoing efforts to better execute new team defence tactics with the purple patch of form.
“I think the difference between the way we’re playing now and the way we were playing at the start of the year is not much different in terms of that exciting, running brand of footy, because we were doing that at the start of the year.
“What the public don’t see is we’re working on our team defence and we’re able to play that exciting brand of footy as well as set ourselves up really well behind the footy.
“That’s something that we’ve been working on all year and will continue to work on. It’s not going to be linear in terms of the progress, we’re still going to have our games where we’ve got things to work on.”
Essendon’s thrilling comeback victory over Adelaide last week sent the side rising to seventh on the ladder with five rounds to come.
Shiel wouldn’t be drawn into any discussions of a potential finals berth and said it is crucial for the club to remain focused, but he did admit his confidence that the team’s game play can continue to hold up in big games.
“You never know until you get there, but what I can say is it seems like we’re making really good progress throughout the year.
“We can see and analyse our game and know it’s heading in the right direction. We’re confident that with what the coaches are bringing to us we can handle it in those tight games, and we’ve proven we can do it when we travel now.
“We’ve still got a lot of footy to play, so it’s important that we don’t take it easy and drop off for the rest of the year, we’re not a team that can do that, we need to hold our spot in the eight and then see where it takes us.”
The Dons will aim to make it five victories in a row when they take on Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium from 4:40pm on Sunday.
