The continued resilience of Essendon’s backline has been one of the pleasing aspects for the team from the first month of the AFL season.

The Bombers lead the competition in rebounds from the defensive 50 and Michael Hurley’s consistent form has been central to that.

“We’ve sort of had the back six or seven for the last 12 months and we’re really starting to gel together,” Hurley said. 

Hurley and fellow key defender Cale Hooker are ranked second and third in the competition for clearing the ball from the defensive zone.

Their distribution to players further up the field has set up countless attacking raids already this season.

Hurley is equally adept on his left and right foot and Hooker’s defence splitting pass late in the round two comeback against Hawthorn set up a goal for Travis Colyer that brought the Bombers back to within a kick. 

“Matty Egan, our backline coach, is all for us being aggressive and playing the way we like to play which is taking intercept marks, running off and I think we complement each other quite well,” Hurley said. 

“Hooksy has taken a heap of intercept marks and we’ve got blokes like Hibbo, Marty Gleeson running off and creating scores.” 

The Bomber defence will face another challenge this weekend when they take on the St Kilda forward line. 

“If (Nick) Riewoldt comes back in, he’s obviously a fantastic player who is hard to match up on.

“(Josh) Bruce has kicked goals, young Paddy McCartin is in there –he’s an exciting young player.

“I think our ‘talls’ match up quite well so it’s going to be an interesting match up.”