Hello again Bombers fans,

The week leading into round one every year as a player, and then as a coach, felt just like being back in my childhood and the excitement of the night before Christmas. That same buzz of emotion and expectation returns this coming week as an anticipative supporter.

It is now a strange feeling though as the coronavirus has taken hold. Among precautions to limit the spread of the virus, round one games will be played at empty stadiums.

I fear and predict that it is only a matter of time that a player or players at a club will become infected and require a minimum 14-day isolation, which will trigger the season being suspended or cancelled entirely.

Doomsday prediction aside, I think we can all agree that our boys have given us reason to be excited about what we all hope will be a largely uninterrupted 2020 season. 

We’ve seen two solid performances in the Marsh Community Series and we now get the chance to see if that form can be carried into the first round. Hopefully there is an omen from the win over West Coast in Perth, where lightning caused a temporary suspension of play, that the boys’ onslaught on opening the 2020 season is like a bolt of lightning. 

It is always the aim to get off to a great start and win in round one. It goes a small way to vindicate pre-season training and consolidate in the players’ minds that they have improved as a group over summer.

Of the 11 seasons I was associated with the club as a player, we were fortunate enough to win the first game of the year eight times. It certainly had us up and about for the following month of games and gave us great impetus for the rest of the season. Having said that, it is not the end of the world if you lose. You lick your wounds, review the game and come back better in round two. Ironically, we went down to the Eagles in round one of our premiership year of 1993.

In an amazing fact (courtesy of @sirswampthing), there have been five leap years in this century and the team that has sat atop the ladder after round one has gone on to win the premiership that year. Essendon started the run in 2000 with a 94-point win over Port Adelaide in the first-ever game at Docklands. I’m not a suspicious person, but geez I hope we have a big win against Fremantle and grab that spot this year. 

In a quirk of the draw in 1991, we didn’t play until round two. It was a 15-team competition with four games (eight teams) in round one and seven teams had the bye. We kicked off on Easter Monday against the Tigers at the MCG and had a lucky four-point victory to kick off the year. 

In round one, 1995, we led Fitzroy 7.12.54 to 0.0.0 at the Western Oval. I imagine it would have been bleak sitting there in their rooms having not troubled the scorers in the first half of their season-opening game. 

Individually, players can really put a stamp on the year too and burst out of the blocks. My old teammate Darren Bewick kicked eight goals against the Eagles at Subiaco in 1993 and had two or three other bags of four goals in other years to get his seasons off to a flyer. And Scotty Cummings smashed Richmond in 1996 with a bag of six to get us over the line.

You will find that a lot more opposition scouting has gone into the game just because clubs have had an eye on their round one opponents since the fixture came out in November. Clubs have had more time to prepare and scour through videos of their opponents’ Marsh Series games. I liken it to the build-up, and what it would be like for the two Superbowl teams that have a week off in between winning their AFC and NFC Championship games.  

The coaching staff can ‘fine-tooth comb’ their opposition and even come up with plays that haven’t been exposed in prior games. The same time can’t be put into regular games once the season has started, as we tend to get on the football treadmill, and run out of time to properly practise opposition-targeted strategies. 

The pace and intensity of the game normally jumps up 10-15 per cent from the practice matches, which makes it hard to prepare for. It always meant me having to expect calf and hamstring cramps later on in the game. I would constantly be down with my hands on the ground during stoppages and breaks in play to keep my calves well stretched and then be looking for a massage at quarter breaks from long-serving head trainer Charlie Italia. I also never knocked back a drink from any trainer during the course of play to ensure my hydration levels were maintained (and to ensure the trainers kept coming out to me). 

These days players get to regularly rotate off the ground where they eat up the chance to get a massage and sometimes down a pickle juice if they are feeling the onset of leg muscle cramp. We never liked coming off the ground in my era because it meant you were being ‘hooked’, but I would’ve loved the chance to come off and get recharged and then get back out there, especially in round one when you use a bit more nervous energy.

Round one is all about getting the ball forward and not mucking around with it too much. There will undoubtedly be handling errors and skill errors amid the increase in intensity, and it is probably better to make a mistake further up the ground (that’s if you can arrange having equal numbers forward of the ball). It will also be handy though if you have the smart players who can hit a short target from congestion and control the tempo of the game when you sense that, as a team, you are labouring. Dyson Heppell does this brilliantly but won’t be suiting up next week, so it’ll be up to Zach Merrett and young tyros Andrew McGrath and Darcy Parish to demonstrate their guile and give the team this ability.

Well, it is almost upon us. 

I can’t wait to see what impact players recruited from other clubs, such as Jacob Townsend, Andrew Phillips and Tom Cutler, will have on the dynamics of the team.

Will there be an AFL debutant in round one, or will we have to wait for a few more rounds for a promising youngster like Irving Mosquito to get his chance?

How far we go this year is anyone’s guess. 

What I can say though is that it will be a rollercoaster ride of emotions, especially given the current climate, but let’s hope for more highs than lows. 

Until next time, 

GO’D

Gary O'Donnell played 243 games from 1987 to 1998, leading the Bombers as captain for two seasons in a decorated career in the red and black. Known as 'Mr Reliable', he was a vital part of Essendon's 1993 premiership side - a year which also saw him win the Crichton Medal as the Bombers' best and fairest. Blending tales of the past with the present, he'll be a regular contributor to essendonfc.com.au in 2020.