Full match coverage and stats<\/a><\/p>\nSunday’s result left wooden spooner Essendon with a 2-21 record for the year, worse than even the 2016 ‘top-ups’ season which generated three wins.<\/p>\n
The Bombers also won only two games in the 1933 VFL season, though that was in a shorter 18-round home and away campaign.<\/p>\n
But Solomon believes the Bombers are on the right track as an announcement on the club’s next full-time coach nears.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to take a bit of time and I know that patience isn’t a thing that we’ve all got at the moment due to the last 15-20 years, but we are absolutely on the right path as a football club,” Solomon said.<\/p>\n
“To see Caddy perform the way he did today and a handful of those other young kids … I keep saying it, another 40-60 games and it’s going to be really exciting.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to be hard work individually and collectively, and there’s no short cuts, but we are on the right path.”<\/p>\n
That future may not include former captain Zach Merrett, who tallied a game-high 32 disposals and a goal against Port amid speculation he could again attempt to force a trade.<\/p>\n
Essendon held Merrett to his contract when he tried to join Hawthorn last year.<\/p>\n
“Ultimately that will be his decision and a lot of that will play out over the coming month,” Solomon said.<\/p>\n
“From a personal point of view I hope he’s going to stay and he gets what he deserves at the end of his career.”<\/p>\n
Mitch Georgiades kicked five goals for Port, while Mitch Zadow and Jack Whitlock added two important goals each.<\/p>\n
The victory gave 15th-placed Port a 7-16 record in Josh Carr’s first season as coach since taking over from long-time mentor Ken Hinkley.<\/p>\n
“It’s been an enjoyable year,” Carr said.<\/p>\n
“The last five weeks have had challenges and that’s predominantly around personnel.<\/p>\n
“The silver lining to that is there are guys getting games into them against really good teams and getting feedback on the difference between the two sides.<\/p>\n
“Whether the year’s a success, I think that’s determined by the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Solomon believes the Bombers are on the right track despite a forgettable two-win season Essendon players look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-865333","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865333","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=865333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}