Essendon captain James Hird starts the first of his weekly columns for the BomberLand website this afternoon. And Hird hasn't pulled any punches in his look at last weekend's game against Port Adelaide, describing the effort as ""inexcusable"". Read the Word from Hird.

To say we have made an ordinary start to our 2004 season is an under-statement. We played some very poor football against Port Adelaide yesterday. And I agree with the coach, what we produced was inexcusable. I can assure our fans the players are every bit as disappointed as they undoubtedly are. But you have to move on and we will work very hard to right the ship against St Kilda this Saturday night.

Statistically, we just didn’t win enough of the football. Port Adelaide had 90 more possessions than we did and you aren’t going to win many games of football with that discrepancy. And it also highlighted the fact that we fell away badly after quarter time. We started okay and had two less kicks than Port at the first break yet finished 43 behind them at the finish of the game.

The statistics would also suggest Port Adelaide ran a lot harder than we did. Port had 44 more handball receives than we did and 29 more uncontested marks. It is an area we will need to improve on this weekend against St Kilda. We need to run the lines better than we did yesterday. The players are fit enough, they just need to have that confidence that will see them take risks at the right time.

Enough of the negatives, despite the result there were some things we did well. We won the clearances on the night – 39 – 37. This is an area where we have sometimes struggled in the past but it shows that our set up around the ball is pretty solid. It also showed that Matthew Allan had an impact – he collected a game-high 21 hitouts.

I thought Justin Murphy did well in his first game with the club. He picked up 25 possessions, cleared the ball from stoppages four times and pumped the ball inside 50m on five occasions. I think he will be a good player for us this season. I thought Joe Misiti, Jason Johnson, Dean Rioli and Adam McPhee were other good contributors for us.

So we look to this Saturday night. If we needed a wake up call we got it yesterday and I expect us to produce better football this weekend. It was a valuable lesson for everyone at the club. We need to turn things around against St Kilda and we need your support. See you at The Dome on Saturday night.