‘Wake-up call’ for Bombers mids, injury curse continues

The Essendon midfield received a wake-up call in the loss to Port Adelaide, coach Brad Scott has said

ESSENDON coach Brad Scott says his midfield received a “wake-up call” in the Bombers’ belting from Port Adelaide, as the club grapples with a plague of soft-tissue injuries.

The Bombers were comprehensively beaten by the Power on Friday night by 69 points, with Port trio Connor Rozee (36 disposals, three goals), Jason Horne-Francis (31 disposals) and Zak Butters (26) dominant.

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After Essendon’s win over St Kilda last week and a solid performance against Sydney on the road in round two, the drop off brought to the fore the Bombers’ struggle with consistency and their room for improvement after being a strong midfield unit to begin the year.

“In the end it’s a good wake-up call for our guys. It’s been a strength to our game, we’re only four games in but it’s been a strength for us,” Scott said post-game.

“Sometimes it’s a perfect storm and whatever we changed made it worse. We were beaten on the inside and we held outside then we held outside and it flipped – we got beaten inside and outside and that’s a real credit to [Port]. Rozee and Horne-Francis were totally dominant in that part of the game and around the ground.

“They were clearly the two dominant players on the ground. It certainly wasn’t through a lack of change of match-ups – we threw them around and whatever we threw at them they were good enough to beat them. That’s a disappointing part of the game but that’s the difference right at the moment between the two sides. We showed for a quarter we can match them in that space but the game goes for four quarters, not one.”

The Bombers also lost Archie Perkins to a hamstring injury in the second half, with defender Jordan Ridley suffering a recurrence of his quad injury at training and set to miss a chunk of games.

The pair are among a group of Bombers who have had soft-tissue injuries in the past two months, including Darcy Parish (hamstring), Zach Reid (hamstring) and Matt Guelfi (calf), with Scott saying the club would investigate the spate of concerns.