Essendon’s defensive woes have been laid bare in shocking behind-the-goals footage that AFL great Dale Thomas has labelled “the worst clip of the year” from a footballing point of view.
The damning vision from the second quarter of the weekend’s loss to North Melbourne shows a complete defensive breakdown just four minutes into the term.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Essendon’s defensive breakdown highlighted in ‘worst clip of the year’
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
The sequence began with North Melbourne inside forward 50 before Essendon won the ball back with decent numbers and a compressed field. After transitioning from defence to offence and finding a mark, the Bombers appeared to be in control.
But what followed was a catastrophic collapse in defensive structure.
After coughing the ball up going forward, Essendon had eight players inside their defensive 50. Despite being numerically sound, two North Melbourne players wandered through unchallenged.
Luke Davies-Uniacke casually strolled past Essendon captain Andy McGrath to mark the ball uncontested, highlighting the complete lack of defensive accountability.
“I watched that at the time. I was like, how is this happening?” Thomas said on The Agenda Setters.
“So whatever is going on, they need to sort it out because the on-field stuff is as messy now as it is off-field.”
The breakdown has raised serious questions about the club’s direction since the sacking of former coach Brad Scott.
Interim coach Dean Solomon has failed to turn around Essendon’s fortunes since taking over, losing all four matches in charge.
“Whatever’s going on, maybe Brad Scott wasn’t the problem because I’m sure he would be looking at that vision going, this group’s hard to coach with what we’ve got,” Kane Cornes said.
“And you could argue that they’ve gone backwards since he has been sacked.”
Meanwhile, Channel 7’s Caroline Wilson has revealed the Bombers are quietly confident of receiving a draft assistance package despite being told by the league that many of their problems were of their own making.
“Not only are they looking for a new coach, but in the last week the Essendon president (Andrew Welsh), list boss (Matt Rosa) and CEO (Tim Roberts) have been in to see AFL bosses Greg Swann and Tom Harley and their teams and put forward their case for special assistance,” Wilson told 7NEWS.
“My understanding is the AFL’s response to date was non-committal.”
Wilson said she believed that the AFL powerbrokers pointed out to the Essendon bigwigs that the club had not made the most of some of their early draft picks in recent years.
“A similar point was made to West Coast when West Coast put forward a similar bid last year,” Wilson said.
However, West Coast ultimately received assistance last year, setting a precedent that could work in Essendon’s favour.
“So my prediction is that Essendon could receive an end-of-first round draft pick as an extra next year, along with a couple of extra rookie spots,” Wilson said.
