Speaking on Best 22, Essendon assistant coach, Gary O’Donnell, has said that Andrew Welsh - in what will be his second game back from a horrific leg injury - could play a key shut-down role tonight on Carlton's Chris Judd.
“We’re a team who likes to attack and run and carry and have the ball in our hands, but so do Carlton, they’ve got some gun midfielders, Judd, Stevens, Murphy, Gibbs, Scotland. We can’t tag them all, we’ll be looking for our guys to be accountable for their player – especially Judd,"" he said.
“Andrew Welsh’s first game back was terrific last week and provides a good spirit for us, he potentially will be a match up.""
O'Donnell admits the loss of Mark McVeigh (suspension) and Adam McPhee (leg injury) will hurt but added that their replacements in Henry Slattery’s and Nathan Lovett-Murray can have an impact on the game.
“McPhee will miss the game, with a little bit of a foot niggle. He will probably only miss one (game). He was 50/50, so we’ve erred on the side of caution rather than him miss a month,” he said.
O'Donnell named Fevola as the man to stop tonight and said it will be a big job.
""Fevola must sleep easy the night before playing us - he always seems to kick a bag,"" he said.
“Tayte Pears is a good chance to play on Fevola on Friday, we’ve just got to help Pears out down back and slide off our men.
