Emerging defender, Jay Nash, believes Essendon has the talent to defeat an aggressive Brisbane Lions at the Dome tomorrow night and secure a berth in the NAB Cup’s semi-finals.
“We are going to treat this game as a normal game and go out there looking for the win,” Nash said.
“I think this is a good opportunity for us, in a team that has a lot of younger players, to give them the experience at that level.
“I know that it is only February but we are excited and we are playing another good young team tomorrow night at the Dome and it is a good opportunity for us to go out there and get some match practice under our belts ahead of the main season.""
While Matthew Knights has the enviable problem of selecting a team of 26 players from an almost fully fit playing list, Nash believes the growing selection pressure is healthy and will ensure a competitive line-up.
“There is always competition for positions and at the moment there are a lot of younger players who are battling it out for similar positions. It is good because it gets rid of the complacency that comes about if players expect to get a game each week,” he said.
“Tomorrow night we will field a side with a lot of players we haven’t played with for a long period of time such as Scott Lucas and Alwyn Davey and it is going to be very exciting to see how they work with the rest of the guys.”
Nash says Essendon’s new-look forward line, which featured emerging key-position players Scott Gumbleton and Jay Neagle, was one of the positives to come out of the Bombers’ one point victory over the Western Bulldogs last fortnight.
“We are pretty excited with the win over the Bulldogs,” he said.
“It is good to be up and going again. Our forward line was bolstered with Scotty Gumbleton and Jay Neagle back up and running.
“They obviously will take a little while to learn how to work together but when it all gets up and running, it will be very exciting.
“Gumbleton is going well. We have been really pleased with the way his body is holding up at the moment. The way he played last week, we always knew he had it in him but we were just waiting for him to get his body right and he has done that at the moment.”
And while the hype this week mounts around Ben Cousin’s return to senior football, Nash said he too will be tuning in to the match, but for other reasons – in preparation for next week.
“I am looking forward to watching because we play the winner so I will definitely be having a look,” Nash said.
