There was a rare ray of light for Essendon in a positive hour at Marvel Stadium on what initially looked another awful night on Sunday.
Brad Scott’s winless Bombers managed a solitary goal in a calamitous opening two quarters where they trailed the unbeaten Western Bulldogs by 54 points. They seemed headed for a triple-digit hiding after losing to the same opposition by 91 and 93 points in clashes last year.
Instead, Essendon belatedly showed some fight to spare some blushes. But there was some unknown, even confusion, in both camps about what they just saw in a game of wildly contrasting halves.
“It’s obviously disappointing to start the way we did, and you wish that you could come out in the first half, the way we did in the second,” Bombers captain Andy McGrath told this masthead.
“But when you’re in those situations, you look at guys’ character and see how they respond. I was really proud of the group and how they responded in that second half [because] it would have been easy to succumb to the Bulldogs’ pressure and let them play the way they wanted to.”
Essendon charged out of the middle on resumption, and Kyle Langford set up the returning Tom Edwards – playing his first AFL game since suffering an ACL rupture a year ago – for a goal inside the opening minute of the second half.
That moment set the tone for a much-improved quarter. They went on to hold the high-octane Dogs goalless (they kicked seven behinds) in the term, while slotting four majors of their own.
The Bombers’ intent looked different – ex-skipper Zach Merrett went from zero tackles at half-time to finishing with a match-high seven – they did a far better job of clogging up the Bulldogs’ ball movement, and even had some pulsating counter-attacks through the corridor.
The Dogs helped Essendon’s cause with some haphazard kicking, but the deficit was back to a more-respectable 35 points by three-quarter-time, and 34 at the final siren.
You read correctly: the Bombers won both the last two quarters, yet still suffered a club-record-equalling 17th consecutive defeat.
“It’s just a fact that can’t be argued. No one puts the number up with an asterisk next to it, and says, ‘For 90 per cent of those games, you could hardly field a team’,” Scott said of the streak.
“No one cares about that – and I don’t care, either. It’s just one of those facts you have to deal with, and it potentially can get demoralising, but that’s what we’re fighting against, and that’s the challenge we’re all faced with.”
The fascination is whether Essendon’s mini-uprising in the second half – against the only team yet to lose this season – means anything at all, or whether it owed more to the Bulldogs getting sloppy and possibly complacent.
The Bombers’ cheer squad seemed genuinely upbeat and found their voice during the third quarter and for most of the second half, illustrating how resilient they clearly are.
A once-mighty club has struggled for far too long, and the injury-ravaged list still looks a long way short of being a competitive outfit, even if all their better players are healthy.
But there was a positive in Edwards’ comeback game. There is reason to be optimistic about Archer May, a key forward unearthed in last year’s mid-season draft. Isaac Kako had some extra centre-bounce opportunities after half-time and showed some glimpses.
Top-10 draft pick Jacob Farrow had 21 disposals at 90 per cent efficiency in his second game, while Archie Roberts (37 disposals) continues to look like a building block for the future.
Up next are resurgent Melbourne; then there is a trip to the Gold Coast to face the Suns; an Anzac Day showdown with Collingwood; a home match against back-to-back reigning premiers Brisbane; a trip to Sydney to take on the Giants; and an MCG date with rampaging Fremantle.
The Bombers will be underdogs in all of those before running out against Richmond on May 22, a night that might provide them with their best chance to avoid going a year without a victory.
The appropriately named “Dreamtime at the ’G” match against the Tigers, who are also winless this season, could take on more meaning for Scott and Essendon, whose last win was over Richmond in the corresponding clash on May 23, 2025.
The Tigers exacted revenge for that result not even two months later, in a sloppy and forgettable game that more closely resembled a high-scoring NFL game (46-37) than an AFL one.
Another nine months on, Essendon are having a challenging season, which already effectively looks over. But Scott refuses to think that way as he prepares to welcome back the likes of Jordan Ridley, Brayden Fiorini, Nate Caddy and young gun Dyson Sharp from injury.
“We’re 0-4. You can go through history and lots of sides have started like this, or even worse, and played finals,” Scott said.
“We’re not anywhere near starting to [say], ‘Finals are out of reach’ or anything like that – but we’re not focused on those things, anyway. We’re focused on consistent improvement of our players.
“What will look like a successful season is that we’re continuing to build a playing group that can play the consistent, four-quarter style of footy [we want to play].”
