A ferocious spotlight has turned on Essendon after their horrible Friday night performance against Port Adelaide.
The Bombers were shown up Port, only managing six goals in the 69-point smashing at Adelaide Oval.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Nick Hind makes bad blunder during Port Adelaide clash.
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And fans were naturally disappointed, given the club has been talking a big game this year.
Coach Brad Scott was applauded when he came out a few weeks ago and said he wanted his team to play with an old-school “edge”.
That “edge” raised eyebrows when the team lost to Sydney (due to a couple of controversial incidents), but it was nowhere to be for the Gather Round clash on the big Friday night stage.
The Bombers had many players who were below their best, and one moment in the last quarter had fans seething, and baffled 7AFL commentator Brian Taylor.
Trailing by 56 points in the last quarter, dasher Nick Hind was running into virtually an open goal, but was seemingly in two minds when he pulled the kick.
Hind (who started the game as the sub) decided to pass to Kyle Langford — who was deep in the pocket near the boundary line — and overshot the kick which sailed out-of-bounds on the full.
“And now he can go all the way to goal, the sub …,” Taylor said as Hind trotted into the forward line.
“Wow! Why are you going to the pocket when you’re 25 metres out?
“He’s kicked it out-on-the-full. Strange decision.”
It was the moment that really flattened Essendon fans with some wondering if it was just a miskick and not a pass.
“Are you sure it didn’t just go off the boot wrong … surely this was an accident, no?” one fan wondered on social media.
But others were less kind.
“Nick Hind needed to be subbed back out and put that red vest on immediately,” one blasted on social media.
“That kick will go down as the worst kick in AFL history. That much time. That much space… Does he have marbles in his head?”
Another said: “This is why we don’t play or win finals.”
Another wrote: “Hey Google, sum up Essendon’s performance tonight.”
While another said with irony: “The Essendon Edge.”
After the game Scott said it was “a good wake-up call” for his team.
“We’re only four games into the season but it’s been a strength for us,” he said.
“Sometimes, it’s just a bit of a perfect storm. Whatever we changed made it worse.
“(Connor) Rozee and (Jason) Horne-Francis were just totally dominant in that part of the game and around the ground.”
Scott said the key now is how Essendon (2-2) respond ahead of a round-five clash with the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium.
“Part of the message is Port right now are where we want to be and they gave us a good lesson tonight,” Scott said.
“You can be clearly very frustrated and disappointed but you’ve got to learn your lesson and progress from there.
“There’s parts of our games that have been a strength in our first three games and it clearly wasn’t tonight.”
Archie Perkins appears set to miss multiple weeks, joining former best-and-fairest winner Jordan Ridley (quad), Matt Guelfi (calf) and Zach Reid (hamstring) on the list of players sidelined by soft-tissue injuries.
Scott confirmed Ridley has had another setback and won’t be available next week as planned, while Guelfi is not recovering as quickly as expected.
Star midfielder Darcy Parish also missed the start of the season with a hamstring injury and Scott admits the trend is cause for concern.
“We’ll just have to go and be really diligent in assessing what’s happening there,” he said.
“We run a really thorough medical program but at the moment we’re being hurt by some soft-tissue injuries.
“In a full-contact sport there are some unavoidable injuries but you’d like to think the soft-tissue ones are the ones you can do something about.
“We’ll need to go to work on that.”
