Essendon defender Cale Hooker has backed the Bombers to take it up to the other in-form team of the competition, Collingwood this weekend.

The Bombers were defeated by Collingwood by 49 points in the Anzac Day blockbuster and Hooker acknowledged the disappointment behind that performance.

“It’s always a big game [when we play Collingwood] and we were pretty disappointed with our performance on Anzac Day,” Hooker said on SEN on Wednesday.

“Collingwood were pretty slick and they were far too good for us so we will be looking to make amends this week.

“We will go through with our opposition staff tomorrow and identify how they play. It’s something we definitely have to look out for because they have those dangerous, speedy forwards and they did stitch us up a bit with that structure last time.

“I’m not sure who is playing [on Mason Cox], but it will probably be more likely to be me. We will have to look at how we structure but we try to not have too much of a distinct match up and we try to have a team defence these days and help each other out.”

The team had an impressive win over North Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, however Hooker conceded that there are still areas for improvement in the team’s game.

“The coach wasn’t too happy with some of the goals we had against us. It was a really strange game and one of the most unique I’ve played in. Whenever they had the ball they would score and whenever we had the ball we would score, it was a strange game but a pretty good spectacle,” he said.

“It was quite hard to set up and we were under the pump a fair bit in the backline, but we were scoring pretty well so it was sort of a hard call and we decided not to slow the game down because it was going in our favour.

“Even though we weren’t defending like we would have liked to, we were still scoring so we kept moving the ball quick and let the half-backs and wingers we have with genuine speed take the game on.

“This week we are working hard on our team defence and some of the things we didn’t do well against North Melbourne and we haven’t been focusing on the opposition too much and that’s been working well for us.

“After we lost to Carlton and we were 2-6 we were embarrassed and frustrated so we had a big meeting as a group and spoke about what we needed to work on and committed to working really hard at that during the week and that’s been our mantra.”

Hooker has been impressed by Shaun McKernan’s ability to come into the senior side and fill the role of injured forward Joe Daniher, whilst he has also loved the work of the three off-season recruits in Jake Stringer, Devon Smith and Adam Saad.

“Shaun has been great and we miss big Joey Daniher, but Shauny was in great form in the VFL knocking the door down for six weeks so it was great opportunity and he has worked really hard for a long time to build his fitness, strength and football skills so it’s great to see him getting some reward for his work,” Hooker said.

“He has slotted into the group really well Jake [Stringer]. I sit next to him in the locker room and he is a great fella and him along with Dev and Saady have come in and had a huge impact on the footy club.

“I think it was always going take a few weeks for them to get used to how we play and for us to get used to how they play and we seem to be starting to get that chemistry with those three guys and it’s great to play with them all as they are three great players.”

Hooker was quick to praise the Bomber faithful for their support on Sunday after a massive crowd of over 45,000 packed into Etihad Stadium and was expecting a big crowd this weekend but said it wouldn’t be a focus of the coaches this week.

“I’ll be surprised if Woosha mentions the crowd, he is a pretty level headed coach. He is pretty focused on what we need to improve on and once we run out there and there is 80,000 people it will speak for itself,” he said.

“On the weekend I think there were 50,000 people there and it felt like the roof was going to blow off at Etihad so it’s great playing footy at the moment and great that the Essendon fans are so passionate and get around us.”

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