Adelaide Crows beat the Bombers in a no mercy flogging, securing second position on the ladder (above Collingwood), no team has kicked more than 15 goals against the Crows this year as the defense gets even stronger and the attack is as strong as ever.
The Coaches Said : "We all understand where Essendon are at the moment and what they are trying to do, and they will have some of those results because of the profile of their squad."But they've got some fabulous talent coming through. So let's take the win for what it was, in front of our home crowd of 42,000. It's important to enjoy it but on Monday it all starts again."
"We'd set ourselves to play the whole game out, irrespective of the scoreboard - up, down or equal. It was a focus the players really wanted to address and they did it really strongly tonight, obviously."To be that sort of margin in front (88 points) at three-quarter time, I think the players really need to be congratulated for their mental approach and (for) the respect they showed Essendon to go about it that way as well."
"Anything can happen when you have that sort of approach, and I thought our contested ball was as good as it's probably been all year, so when you put those things into place - execution and contested ball - you never know what can happen."
Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy said: "You would think Adelaide looks a pretty well-drilled team but we didn't throw up a lot of opposition tonight."I think they (his players) would be shell-shocked, to be quite honest. It was a situation where the players' confidence is sort of down when you see the awesome task of trying to beat a full-flight Crows."We'll just have to ask the fans to bear with us while we're going through this transitional period."
ADELAIDE: 6.1, 13.4, 20.7, 30.8 (188)
ESSENDON: 2.2, 4.6, 5.9, 6.14 (50)
GOALS – Adelaide: Hentschel 8, Burton 4, McGregor 4, Ricciuto 3, Bode 2, Reilly, Doughty, Johncock, Shirley, Biglands, Goodwin, Knights, Thompson, Edwards
BEST – Adelaide: Hentschel, Ricciuto, Goodwin, McGregor, Burton, Reilly, Bassett, Johncock, Edwards, Doughty