Despite not blowing away a young Sydney outfit at North Sydney Oval last Friday night, Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy believes it was still a valuable hit out for his side leading into this Friday night's NAB Cup opener against Brisbane at Carrara. Despite a gulf in the relative experience of both sides. Essendon played patchy football to run out unconvincing 19-point winners.

""It was a game that was up and down, we felt we should have got more scores on the board and with the ability out there we should have,"" Sheedy said. ""We haven't done a lot of goal-kicking at the moment but we will see if we can zone in on that next week.""

The young Sydney side attacked the football hard all night and won a lot of contested football. Former Bomber Ted Richards did well kicking three goals and proving a handful for Nathan Lovett-Murray during the course of the night.

""But full marks to Sydney, they had a lot of young players out there trying their butts off and it kept the game interesting all night,"" Sheedy said. ""At this time of year you want to see where your players are at - nobody got injured which was a bonus.""

Among those missing from the Essendon side was Jason Johnson, Jason Laycock, James Hird, Dean Solomon, Richard Cole, Andrew Lovett and Dean Rioli.