\n Feature\n <\/p>\n
\n Bombers host solid session ahead of long weekend.\n <\/p>\n
As Jayden Nguyen\u00a0put it on Wednesday, \u2018this is the fun time\u2019 of pre-season.<\/p>\n
Essendon ramped up its\u00a0pre-season on Friday morning with a 30-minute period\u00a0of match simulation as part of a big final hit-out before the public holiday weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With competition for spots\u00a0expected to be strong ahead of round one, the session offered an opportunity for last year\u2019s extensive list of debutants to go head-to-head with a bunch of returning experienced players for a block of training under full match conditions.<\/p>\n
Right from the first bounce, the coaches capitalised on said opportunity with their matchups around the ground \u2013 draftees Dyson Sharp\u00a0and Jacob Farrow were thrown straight into the centre and spent the\u00a0majority of the\u00a0match-sim lined up on an on-ball group which\u00a0included Sam Durham, Zach Merrett\u00a0and Darcy Parish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sharp held his own on the inside and competed well, even pushing forward late to set up Archie May\u00a0on a perfect lead to convert. Farrow too had some notable moments, pirouetting out of traffic with poise on multiple occasions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lachie Blakiston\u00a0and Vigo Visentini duked it out in the ruck for almost the entirety of play, each posing a challenge with their mobility around the ground and hitting the scoreboard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blakiston\u2019s leap and agility saw his side gain an advantage at clearances, linking up well with Parish and Durham on multiple occasions for the mids to explode out of stoppage.<\/p>\n
A fit and firing Parish was one of the standouts of the session \u2013 after an injury-ravaged couple of years and a big off-season that included a trip to Baltimore for specialised\u00a0medical consultation and testing, the 28-year-old was impressive.<\/p>\n
Clean over the ball in contested situations, Parish was also damaging in space.\u00a0Elijah Tsatas\u00a0was another in the midfield who consistently found the footy throughout the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Forward of the ball, it was another edition of the Nate Caddy\u00a0show.<\/p>\n
Taking on different matchups including Zach Reid\u00a0and Ben McKay, Caddy continually flew for marks both deep inside 50 and as an option up the ground and clunked the majority of them.<\/p>\n
His athleticism, courage and aggression in aerial contests was prominent, shaping up to make him a difficult matchup this year alongside the depth of key forwards such as May and Peter Wright, who also worked into the game well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saad El-Hawli was an important link from the back half, while Archie Roberts was typically tenacious and looked to push further up the ground than we saw last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There were exciting matchups of youth across the ground, with Zak Johnson\u00a0lining up off half back on Rhys Unwin\u00a0and May often competing against forward-turned-defender Kayle Gerreyn.<\/p>\n
Another of the youngsters to impress was Angus Clarke, whose \u2018old-school\u2019 toughness and footy smarts are allowing him to complement Mason Redman\u00a0nicely behind the ball.<\/p>\n
The intensity of the session was held to a high standard by the senior boys \u2013 Zach Merrett\u00a0was super vocal for his side, solid tackling was on display from Nguyen, Brayden Fiorini and Jye Caldwell from start to finish.<\/p>\n
Archer Day-Wicks\u2019 forward positioning saw him on the end of multiple scoring opportunities \u2013 on two occasions, Reid and Redman\u2019s elite distribution kickstarted plays which ended in Day-Wicks shots on goal.<\/p>\n
The connection between NGA products Huss El Achkar\u00a0and Isaac Kako\u00a0bore fruit when the draftee cleverly played on to advantage along the boundary and found last year\u2019s Rising Star nominee, who hit up Blakiston at point-blank range.<\/p>\n
Top ten pick Sully Robey was an active observer on the touchline, working closely and conversing with Toby McLean and the coaching panel as he works his way back into a modified program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harry Jones, Will Setterfield, Tom Edwards, Archie Perkins\u00a0and Nick Bryan\u00a0all participated in early ball movement drills before sitting out the match simulation, making solid progress in their push for returns.<\/p>\n
The group will return to training following the public holiday weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feature Bombers host solid session ahead of long weekend. As Jayden Nguyen\u00a0put it on Wednesday, \u2018this is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-435424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}