Essendon started the game minus Jarrod Atkinson who withdrew with hamstring tightness. Rookie Rhys Magin was rewarded with his first game of AFL football.
The critical match up of the game was going to be in the ruck where David Hille and Dean Cox would lock horns. Hille convincingly beat Cox earlier in the season but the Eagles’ star wasn’t going to let it happen twice.
The Eagles’ big man dominated the first half of the game as West Coast produced some of its best football of the season. At half-time Cox had 13 possessions, 13 hit outs and was a key to the 38-point lead. Hille on the other hand had got his hands on the football just four times.
But Hille wasn’t alone with a number of Bombers having very little influence on the game in the first half. Essendon simply couldn’t find the football and when they did skill errors cost them dearly. Too many kicks missed the target and missed tackles didn’t help their cause either.
David Wirrpanda and Ben McKinley were causing Essendon enormous problems in front of goal, judging the wind conditions much better than their opponents and each kicked two goals each for the quarter.
McKinley continued to create problems in the second quarter kicking two superb goals from tight angles and the gap between the two sides would have been worrying the Essendon coaching staff. And it was not just the gap on the scoreboard, with the Eagles’ players simply looking to be working harder than the Bombers.
The third quarter started well enough for Essendon. Lloyd took a big mark inside 50m – his mis-kick finding Hille who goaled. But as had been the case in the first half, Essendon’s movement of the ball inside 50m was terrible and too often Eagles’ defenders took easy marks.
Goals to Mark LeCras and McKinley saw the Eagles lead balloon to beyond five goals midway through the third quarter and the game looked over. But the Bombers clawed it back to 20 points thanks to late goals from Matthew Lloyd and Jason Laycock.
However the Eagles were coming home with the breeze and a goal to Quinten Lynch – who had a superb day for the winners - five minutes into the last quarter effectively finished the game.
The Bombers tried hard for the balance of the game, and at times in the final term got within striking distance of the Eagles. McKinley capped off a superb day with his seventh goal for the day in the final quarter. He was the most effective key forward on the ground and one of the key differences between the two sides.
It was a disappointing day for the Bombers and it brings down the curtain on season 2008. The coaching staff would have been bitterly disappointed with what they saw and the players would have been just as disappointed with what they produced.
Still, Essendon has made some headway in the second half of the season and it is important they finish well in the coming three weeks. And they will be three serious tests against teams destined to be a part of the September action.
