“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”
—James Baldwin
Intro.
If you thought this game hinged on one crucial aspect of football, you'd be correct. I can't recall an Essendon match that was so heavily influenced by this factor and the momentum shifts it caused. While I'll delve into how clearances affected the game's dynamics, I'll also discuss another aspect that pleasantly improved compared to recent games and how it played a significant role as the game progressed.
Quote taken from the preview.
“The Dockers lead the competition in clearance differential, with a total of 161.5, the largest in over nine years, compared to Essendon’s 5.7.
Now you can see why this aspect is so important in the result of this game.”
“Despite Fremantle's dominance in clearances, they only average a +6.1-point differential from all stoppages and +5 points from stoppages around the ground. What it does set up for them is territory and importantly, field position.
Of the 106.2 opposition possession chains, nearly 36% begin in the back third, which is too high a number to start so far away from goal and then rely on ball movement forward….
After conceding four goals directly from centre bounces against the Saints last week, I would expect Essendon will focus heavily on this area in both reviews and training.”
Clearance.
The battle over clearances was always going to be pivotal, but I didn't anticipate just how crucial it would become. Winning centre clearances seven to one in the first quarter against a team as strong as Fremantle in this area was critical. It set the tone for the contest and boosted the forwards' confidence, encouraging them to work together and trust that they'd get quality opportunities. Six shots at goal came from winning clearances, with four of those shots directly from centre bounce, accounting for five of the 12 total shots taken by both teams in the quarter. Would this continue to be a factor for the rest of the game? Absolutely.
Although Essendon won the overall clearances by six in the first 20 minutes, Fremantle won stoppages around the ground five to two. As I noted in my preview, Fremantle is less effective at converting these into shots, instead relying on turnovers, which resulted in three goals for them. The two middle quarters showed how much influence clearances had on the game's momentum.
While Fremantle could only manage one shot at goal from clearances in the first quarter, three of their five goals in the second quarter came from converting their seven stoppage wins into goals. Essendon, on the other hand, managed only three shots on goal from 13 clearance wins. A worrying trend was Fremantle’s ability to score three goals from stoppages that began in their defensive half, highlighting Essendon's struggle to defend against ball movement. However, as I'll discuss later, Essendon had chances to counter this with better setup behind the ball.
Essendon limited Fremantle to 18 inside 50s in the first half, six fewer than Fremantle's season average. However, the 12 to three clearance wins in the third quarter allowed Fremantle 15 entries into a zone where Essendon didn't want to be starting possession chains.
Fremantle capitalised on this dominance, using handballs to find players on the outside for run, link and carry.
In the first two quarters, Essendon had 27 possession chains with 33.33% starting in their defensive third. In the third quarter, however, they managed only 20 possession chains with 60% starting in the defensive third. This shift dried up their once-reliable scoring source, yielding only two points while Fremantle took five shots for 15 points out of their total 21 for the quarter. Something had to change. Could the Bombers regain first possession from stoppages and capitalise on the scoreboard again? Yes, they could, but there was another key reason for this turnaround that I found more satisfying than anything else in this game, which I'll discuss later.
Even though Essendon lost overall clearances in the last quarter seven to ten, they efficiently converted those seven wins into scoring opportunities. In the final 20 minutes, Essendon converted just over 57% of their seven clearance wins into shots at goal, scoring 19 of the 33 points for the quarter this way. In contrast, Fremantle converted only 30% of their ten clearances into shots, with the clear advantage being where Essendon win the clearances on the ground, the centre square.
Intercepting.
Throughout this year, I have shared my frustration with various aspects of the setup behind the ball when trying to win it back from the opposition. Sometimes it has been about positioning, and at other times, it's been about unreliable support. Recently, however, the issue has been more about individual performances. It was pleasing to see that the defenders' positioning was much improved this week, as it has been inconsistent throughout the year. At times, players have been too far up the ground with their forward press in an attempt to keep the ball in the front half. The extra support behind the ball was close enough to make an impact in the air or at ground level when required. With this setup balance corrected, winning the ball back should be the priority, and if not, maintaining possession in the area should be the default strategy.
Unfortunately, on numerous occasions in the first half, extra players behind the ball often failed to either win the contest or contain the ball in the area, disrupting the rest of the structure and freeing up opposition players. This was particularly evident in the second quarter, as Essendon lost contested possessions at ground level by seven, after winning it by eight in the first quarter.
Once the ball then left that area, the defensive 50 was open and Fremantle could turn their eight entries for the quarter, down from their average of 12.8 for the season, into four marks inside their front third.
The frustration was evident on Scott’s face in the coaches’ box. He knew that the players ahead had done the hard work to earn territory from the clearance, and the defenders had set up correctly behind the ball. However, they still lost contests, as they had against St. Kilda the previous week. By halftime, 36 of Fremantle's 55 points originated from the defensive half, a statistic that Essendon should have curtailed with their setup. Winning these contests is extremely important, especially more when the team commits extra support to them. There is nothing more that a coach can do in the set up to aid this process, it is purely reliant on the players ability to execute on a regular basis.
Contest.
I've addressed the contest issues behind the ball, and if this trend continued, along with an inability to consistently win contests ahead of the ball, reliance on clearances alone wouldn’t have sufficed. After losing contested possession by 17 against St. Kilda last week, their biggest differential loss of the year, Essendon appeared to be heading for a similar outcome, trailing Fremantle by 10 at the end of the third quarter, primarily due to groundball contests.
After finishing the first half at 40 apiece in groundball, Fremantle dominated the third quarter 24 to 15. Pleasingly, Essendon reversed the trend in the final quarter, changing game's trend and rising to the occasion. In the crucial final 20 minutes, Essendon won contested possessions 35 to 28, and contested marks five to zero, with a second-half margin of 11 to two—a significant improvement from last week's 16 to five loss.
All season, Fremantle has averaged over 21 uncontested marks per quarter. In the first quarter, they met this average with 21, and in the second, they exceeded it with 25. However, as the game progressed, Essendon increasingly denied them their preferred style of play, allowing only 14 uncontested marks in the last quarter. Fremantle’s average of 51 uncontested possessions to support their marking strategy was down from the 59 they had previously averaged. This forced them to earn possession through intercepts, which has not been their strength; they rank 18th in the league for intercept possessions, averaging 14.92 per quarter. Tackles became their primary means of regaining possession, but being ranked 14th in this area and only averaging 14.7 tackles per quarter shows that this hasn’t needed to be relied upon to date, well this time, it was the only way they were going to compete, as they were forced to apply 21 tackles.
Essendon has been questioned, and individuals examined on their consistent ability to win contests this season, and it should continue. This is the main factor of finals football and successful finals football. The capabilities of each individual player should be based on this measurement, and as I have said on multiple occasions, it’s my belief that this is what the coaches have been concentrating on in evaluating the list that can continue into the future.
Efficiency.
Front half efficiency continues to be a work in progress, but the longer the game went on, the more effective the team became at turning forward entries into shots. Up until halftime, the rate of 31.2% shots to entries wasn’t dangerous enough to put pressure on the opposition's scoring capacities, but after halftime, that rate rose to 51.8%, a marked increase.
Just as important is defending those entries from transitioning to the other end. As I wrote earlier, six goals were scored from the defensive half in the first 40 minutes of play, with only another two goals coming for the rest of the game.
The desire to fight inside the front third was evident throughout the game, with the 18 tackles inside 50 being the most they have recorded all season.
Rebound.
It was evident early on that there was a desire to move the ball forward at a quicker rate by using handballs to create run and utilise the space that the MCG provides. It looked clunky at times and didn’t seem natural or by any design, but the change in attitude was welcome. This season, Essendon has averaged over 58% of its disposals by foot instead of hands, but in the first quarter, they only kicked the ball 53.8%, a rate that would clearly be the lowest of any team's average for the season. Being dominant at clearance certainly helped, as it gave them a more prominent position on the ground. Some costly turnovers in the middle two quarters hurt their confidence to continue, as well as losing six centre clearances in the third quarter, which meant the safer option to go forward was by foot, being so far away from goal. In the last quarter, the dare returned due to the fact that the ball didn’t spend as much time so far away from goal.
Rucks.
Bryan finally got another look as a ruckman this week and quickly proved why he deserved his spot within the first 20 minutes.
The centre bounce domination I wrote about earlier had his hands all over it, figuratively and literally. He had four score launches for the game, the highest in his 16-game career, all of which occurred in the first quarter. This resulted in 19 of Essendon’s first 27 points coming directly from his work. By the end of the round, he was tied as the number one ruck across all teams in this metric, despite only playing 58% time on ground—18% to 30% less than the other top-performing rucks.
Bryan’s inclusion had more than just this impact on the game; it also proved beneficial to Draper later on and, in turn, to the team.
For the first three quarters, Bryan attended 40 of the 63 ruck contests, while Draper participated in the other 23. This break allowed Draper to maintain the freshness in his legs, enabling him to use his best asset—his leap—in the last quarter.
Given Scott’s continued preference for using two dedicated ruckmen and with Wright being dropped for the second time this year, Scott must continue looking at this combination over Goldstein and Draper for the rest of the season.
Conclusion.
Scoring from clearances isn't a reliable long-term strategy, as we saw in this game. It can be highly variable and volatile both within a single game and from week to week. However, it can be used as a point of difference against the opposition, an asset against someone else’s vulnerabilities.
Overall, the team should be proud of their effort to fight through the game and dispel the myth that they cannot handle the pressure as the season progresses to its critical stages. It's essential that they build on this hard work and improved mindset in the upcoming games and not let it go to waste.
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