Durham leads Bombers to Dreamtime win against Richmond with late goalGreg Baum
The Age
May 21, 2023A goal square mark and goal in the last minute to Sam Durham delivered to Essendon their first win over Richmond in 14 games since 2014 in the Dreamtime match at the MCG on Saturday night. It also snapped a four-game losing streak.
The victory for the undermanned Bombers will fortify their sense that under new coach Brad Scott, they are at last on a path to a sustainable future. They stuck to their possession game plan and kept their shape when the game appeared to have slipped out of their reach, and were rewarded.
Richmond, on the other hand, have again been knocked off the stride of what was a faltering recovery from a fruitless start to the season. They should have won this and will know it. They desperately missed the injured forward Tom Lynch.
Essendon coach Brad Scott said that after four losses, the most important thing about the win was the fact of it. “There’s only so long you can keep talking about effort, and playing well,” he said “Coaches don’t like to talk about the result because it’s the process and system you put in place to get the result.
“But it becomes hard to keep pushing a message when you’re not getting that result. So for the players, that was really important.
“But I would never underestimate what Essendon fans have gone through over the last decade. It’s been hard for them. When I spoke to the players on the ground at the post-game presentation, you looked around and the Essendon fans were all still there.”
In truth, the quality of football on the night did not match the grandeur of the staging. Long passages of scrappy play pock-marked by turnover goals were the night’s motif. This was not one they will be talking about around the campfires for years to come. Until the second half, the most notable performers were Michael Long, Dean Rioli and - of all people - Kevin Sheedy singing Archie Roach numbers at the long break.
But sometimes a game becomes memorable not for how it is played but how it finished. This was one.
None of that is to downplay the performance of Essendon captain Zach Merrett, Without Darcy Parish, and following the late withdrawal of Dylan Shiel, he was tasked to play as three men, and did. His vision made goals for Durham and Jake Stringer early in the last quarter as Richmond threatened to steal away with the game. His 39 touches made him a worthy and unanimous winner of the best-on-ground medal.
Scott said Merrett brought to mind former teammate and Brisbane great Michael Voss in that he was even better close-up than he had imagined from afar.
“As a kid growing up watching Voss play, I thought, gee, this guy’s a generational player,” he said. “But usually you get disappointed when you see them up close. When I (played with him), I thought, he’s even better than I thought he was.
“Merrett fits in that category. I knew he was a good player. But he’s a better player than I thought he was. And that’s unusual.”
Richmond coach Damian Hardwick could not conceal his frustration.
“It was a horrible game by us to be perfectly honest,” he said. “We couldn’t defend. To give up 140 uncontested marks was just diabolical. It was an obvious strategy coming in. We saw it in their VFL guys, but we just couldn’t stop it.
“We just couldn’t get the ball back, which was incredibly frustrating. It wasn’t helped by the fact offensively, we just gave the ball back.
“Thirty-six turnovers in the front half is just horrendous. We didn’t give ourselves an opportunity. We had 60-odd inside 50s But we just kept giving the ball back.”
Because of their midfield manpower crisis, initially the Bombers simply could not get their hands on the ball at stoppages, and in the first 12 minutes of the match advanced the ball into their forward 50 only once, briefly. The least they had to be was precise with the ball when they had it and efficient in the forward arc, and they were. Four minutes later, they were in front, courtesy of two Sam Weidman free kick goals, and maintained that lead to quarter time.
Richmond’s Shai Bolton began as if he had been given his own football for his 100th match. But for all the Tigers’ ascendancy, they could not find a marking forward target. Jack Riewoldt was unsighted, and Lynch wasn’t there at all, and the only mark they were paid, to Samson Ryan, was an umpiring howler.
The Bombers had the better of a scrappy second quarter, but kicked 1.6. Weideman was the only forward on the ground winning his position, but was profligate, kicking three behinds from gettable shots. Dustin Martin’s curling goal from, long range was a rare highlight.
Two Bolton goals defined the third quarter. The first came from a badly errant handball from the generally excellent Andy McGrath, allowing Bolton to waltz to the goal-line. The other was an artful dribble from what two weeks ago was the Bobby Hill pocket. Lots of dross; flashes of brilliance; so this game played out. The crowd of nearly 80,000 groaned as much as they cheered, but at least Essendon contingent would go home happy.
Bolton’s stroke of inspiration was matched at the start of the last quarter by Martin’s driving goal from outside 50. That should have settled the issue, but this was a night on which nothing and no-one was settled. The magnificent Merrett set up goals in quick succession for Durham and Stringer.
Another McGrath miscalculation when trying to switch led to a toe-poke on the goal-line for Tigers substitute Judson Clarke. As if the players were not authors enough of their own ill-fate, a cruel bounce then eluded Dylan Grimes, allowing Jye Menzie in to bring the Bombers back within range.
The Richmond of old would have killed the match then. Instead, it was seized by the renewed Bombers.
With three-and-a-half wins from 10 games, the Tigers’ season is teetering.
“The fact that matter is we should be better than where we’re positioned on the ladder,” Hardwick said. “I’ve got to take some responsibility for that. We’ve got to get to work. The season’s still alive.”
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