Essendon went down to the West Coast Eagles by 35-points in the opening round of the NAB Cup tonight.
Despite rushing out to a 24-point quarter-time lead - and stretching the margin to 30-points in the second quarter - Essendon had no answer for young Eagles' star Nic Naitanui who almost single-handedly turned the game his side's way.
Naitanui had 21 hitouts, seven clearances and kicked four goals in a dominant display, capitalising on a depleted Essendon ruck division with Paddy Ryder, David Hille and Jason Laycock all missing.
Essendon was also without Michael Hurley, Brent Stanton, Scott Gumbleton and Courtenay Dempsey.
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Essendon assistant coach Gary O'Donnell said some costly errors tightened the game up in the second half of the second quarter.
""We had some fumbles and they got a few goals as a result and the pressure of the game got to a few of our players and our lead was erased by half-time,"" he said.
""If we had've held it and had a five goal lead at half-time, maybe it could have been a different game because that puts the pressure on the opposition.
""It is disappointing to lose but we had a few positives come out of it and for the first quarter and a half we did very well and our stuctures seemed to work.""
O'Donnell said the club was clearly hurt by a lack of tall marking options.
""Four or more of our better talls were out and we will get them back in coming weeks which will be good,"" he said.
""We had a small forward line but having them work together for the first time with Mark Williams was a positive.
""I thought Cale Hooker had a good game and Tayte Pears tried hard but the backline was under seige. Sam Lonergan tried hard and Jobe Watson got his hands on the ball a fair bit which was impressive but overall we were smashed in the clearances.
""It was a pretty even performance by our guys with not a lot of stand-outs. There were a lot of guys that were good early like Kyle Reimers and Brent Prismall but our match fitness needs to come through.""
O'Donnell said that having 17 goals kicked by West Coast was a negative.
""We have two weeks until our next game and we need to work on our structues and be ready for that,"" he said.
Essendon got through the game without any injuries.
For match details and a quarter by quarter match report click here.
