David King thinks that Essendon is beginning to iron out their kinks but are still too inconsistent to beat the best teams in the competition.
King’s take came after the Dons drew 85-85 with Collingwood on Anzac Day.
Essendon came out of the blocks firing in that clash, kicking four goals in the first eight minutes of the game before Collingwood had basically gotten the ball inside 50, but King was most impressed with their early defensive work.
While the Dons have always been a fairly strong contested team under Brad Scott, it’s been the leaky defence that has constantly cost them, but King thinks that they’re starting to plug those leaks.
In the first half, King revealed that Essendon only gave up 16 points from defensive 50.
While that’s a positive statistic, he noted that they gave up 31 points from defensive 50 in the second half, which is where they failed to nail the win.
“There are still some issues, but they're playing some really good footy,” King said on SEN Whateley.
“They've always been able to move the ball, but they've never been able to defend.
“In the first half when they were dominant early … Collingwood scored 16 points out of their defensive half, 12 of the 16 points come from kick-ins, which is quite bizarre.
“They'd look at that and say, well, that's an outlier that's probably going to happen once every eight weeks.
“Then when the game slips, they go back into old habits, they're not as diligent and they're not there yet.
“They cough up 31 points in the second half out of the back half and in the end, that's the gap in the game.
“That's the reason why they didn't get all four points.”
While it’s disappointing to have inconsistent outcomes in terms of defence, King is excited about the Dons because he thinks that they’ll eventually become more stable in that aspect – which could become the bedrock for their game.
Once they become that finished product, he expects the Bombers to rise quickly.
“We're not hunting for negatives. We're just saying (first half) unbelievable, (second half) gettable,” King said.
“As soon as they can find that consistency and be somewhere in the middle, they'll be a good footy team and then have the potential to be a great footy team.
“It's all about performance. People say, ‘You’re a bit hard on them’, well of course we’re hard on them. I think they've got serious talent there and the off-season signatures show that they think so too. Otherwise, you're not going and making these decisions ahead of time.
“We're seeing probably the best of those guys (the draft picks) because the rising tide has lifted all ships at Essendon.
“That's all we're hunting for. We're hunting for Essendon to become the finished product as quickly as they can.”
The 4-1-2 Dons next face West Coast at Optus Stadium on Saturday night.
