Notes

Essendon v Geelong Practice Match

Quarter one

Cox, Perkins, Duursma and Tsatas spent time on the wing with Cox and Duursma covering for Martin, which allowed him freedom to play his game.

Durham fantastic inside at centre bounces.

Wright playing the second ruck role allows a change in set up in the front half.

Stoppage clearance domination off the back of Goldstein's tap work.

Rather than hitting it down teammate's throats, he's hitting to space to let players run onto the ball and use their legs rather than standing flat footed and having to immediately give it off.

Good spacing by forwards, not getting in each others way and using the whole width of the front third, always movement ahead which is getting the rewards with marks inside 50.

Half forwards staying involved with great pressure at ground level inside forward 50. Stringer, Caldwell and Guelfi, working really hard with second and third efforts to keep it inside the area.

Closing the space when the ball is in the area and not retreating when Geelong have the ball between the arcs is a big improvement compared to last week.

Durham's tackling is A1.

Martin getting to dangerous areas to receive from stoppages and in possession chains, deservingly being rewarded for his work.

Quick play on from defensive half with great overlap, it's creating movement and space ahead.

It's all off the back of the attitude in wanting to generate space for teammates to move in and out of, kickouts a noticeable difference.

Intercepts are paying off on the scoreboard.

Big tick.

Quarter Two

Game opened up as Geelong started going longer with the ball by foot, second layer of defence not set up quickly enough and then the first layer of defence getting turned around by their opponents. It's forced Ridley to be an extra behind.

McKay needs to lockdown tighter when on the last line. Essendon giving up a lot of marks down back now.

Good ball movement in making the Cats defend by honouring a teammate's hard work to become an option. It's creating space ahead of the field.

But the ball is rebounding out a little too easy.

Stringer playing higher the ground, just needs to be switched on a little more when Geelong has the ball in that vicinity.

Winning contests at ground level, numbers working for support.

Quarter three

Reid consistently good positioning for intercepting or impacting in the air.

Overlapping stopped in the defensive half, been forced to kick longer which has stalled ball movement,

Half forwards working hard to keep the ball in the vicinity or create repeat stoppages.

Gave up a lot of inside 50s as it has turned into a very high transition game.

Lost the kickout set up, forced to just go long.

Giving up a lot of marks inside 50 now.

Quarter four

Not honouring short hit ups in ball movement, in fact, not even looking to hit them up.

Doing a lot of defending as losing clearance and can't find an "out" as a marking option, hard to set up the ground and then set up structure.

Stoppages have dried up, ball leaving areas too often.

Being outworked on the spread once the ball leaves the zone, game is in far too much transition, it's meaning that it's not just going inside 50, but it's going deep.

Once Wright was finished for the day and then Langford played no further part, finding targets down the line and closer to goal dried up. Geelong defenders got more active because of it.

Good

Parish, nothing more to say than outstanding.

Duursma working back to help defend.

Reid fantastic in the air and great foot skills.

He alongside McKay worked as intercept defenders.

Goldstein, brilliant tap work.

Clearance domination from Goldstein's hitouts.

Merrett's vision to find teammates and then to execute plus his pressure on Geelong when the ball is in tight.

When the game was in tight, closed the space and kept good balance to keep the ball in the area.

Durham got a lot of exposure inside centre square.

Bad

Game turned into high transition once stoppages dried up.

Lost the dominance around stoppages once Goldstein wasn't in the ruck.

Gave up a lot of marks inside 50, and then shots once in there.

Smalls and mediums worked hard to halve battles inside 50, just couldn't win enough of those battles cleanly.

Only used 5 players at centre bounce.

Setterfield, Durham, Merrett, Parish and Caldwell.