Despite coming off a heartbreaking loss, Nathan Buckley has named Essendon as one of the teams that has impressed him most this year.
The Bombers pushed one of the competition’s best teams in Port Adelaide to the absolute limit on Saturday night, with Dan Houston’s incredible kick after the siren dashing Essendon’s hopes of recording a statement victory.
Even though they couldn’t hold on, the Bombers displayed all the characteristics that Buckley has admired from them this season.
“They’re very competitive… even when they lose they’ve been in games for a long time this year, I think it’s been an exceptional season,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
“I fully expect that they will qualify (for finals) and I would hate to come up against Essendon in September this year.
“There’s something about Brad Scott’s boys, if I was a supporter, I’d be rapt to watch them, I reckon I know what I’m going to get and largely it’s around competitiveness and never giving in
“They’ve run really good sides to really meritorious losses, close losses, even when they haven’t got the wins.”
Buckley went on to break down their game style, believing their competitiveness allows their emphasis on transition to flourish.
“They play a really high transition game, they move the ball as well as anyone from their back 50 to their forward 50, and they’re expansive with their ball use,” he said.
“That’s always been there with the Bombers in recent times, the thing that they haven’t had is the defensive integrity.
“They still allow ball movement a lot, and I think because they like that high transition game, they obviously run hard, they move the ball really well, they actually defend, even though they allow that ball movement back, they actually defend that really well.
“If you unpack them a little bit further, I actually like what they’re doing behind the ball.
“They don’t have one guy that they rely on in any part of the field… they’re as even a team as you’d have out there, and that makes it really hard to plan for.”
For Buckley, the biggest improvement from last year has come courtesy of Essendon’s leaders.
“I haven’t even gone to (Zach) Merrett and (Dyson) Heppell… their leadership has improved out of sight across the board,” he said.
“Heppell was written off, and his last four to six weeks have been really good, and he’s needed to because he wouldn’t be getting a game without it.”
While Kane Cornes acknowledges that the Bombers have been performing well, he needs to see them claim a big scalp before he buys them as a genuine threat.
“The teams that they’ve beaten are teams that they should have beaten,” he said.
“Hawthorn, they’ve beaten Gold Coast, GWS, Melbourne was a great win in Adelaide, they’ve beaten Richmond who are bottom four, beaten North, the Blues who are bottom half of the ladder and West Coast.
“They’ve got Adelaide at Marvel this week, the Bombers are eighth, Adelaide are seventh, they then play Geelong in Geelong… and then they play the Bulldogs who are in sixth position.
“In the next three weeks, they play the teams directly above or directly below them on the ladder, they need to start taking care of those teams if they want to be considered as a team who’s going to cause some problems in September.”