Essendon VFL coach Paul Corrigan says he’s been impressed by the form of Josh Begley and is tipping a senior call-up might be just around the corner if the first year player’s form continues.

Begley has shown promising signs developing his game in a range of positions.

On Friday night in the Bombers narrow loss to Footscray he finished with 11 disposals, four tackles and a goal.

“His work rate was outstanding – we are seeing improvement from him week in, week out,” Corrigan said.

“I think as he grows more confidence in his style of playing and how we want to play he has been getting aspects of playing in the midfield as well in recent weeks.

“We’re just continuing to develop his game, not only as a forward but pushing him inside as well so he now has the versatility to be able to play numerous roles.

“He needs to keep building that consistency that he has in his game at the moment. I’m sure that he will get an opportunity later in the year if his form continues like that.”

Jordan Ridley was also a standout in Friday night’s clash against Footscray. 

In his second game back after three months on the sidelines, Ridley displayed the talent that saw him selected early in the second round of last November’s National Draft.

He was dominant overhead, taking 12 marks in defence, and creating multiple turnovers in the Dons favour.

“It’s really good for ‘Rids’, I think he looked a lot more comfortable tonight, sometimes that’s the way after you’ve had a week back,” Corrigan said.

“He is good with ball in hand, great with his kicking and he looks strong in the air.

“He’ll keep adapting, hopefully over the next month he can put some really strong performances together and start to gel with that back six.”

Corrigan credited a number of the Essendon players for their solid performances in the round eight game against the Dogs.

Shaun McKernan was the leading goal kicker, booting four and taking his VFL season total to 15.

The Bombers midfield was dominant. Heath Hocking finished with 29 disposals, four marks and six tackles and 20 year old Kyle Langford finished with 26 disposals and five marks.

“McKernan up forward looked really lively for us, once again he was able to get on the end of a few,” Corrigan said.

 “Through the middle Hocking and Langford worked tirelessly, they both put a really good effort in there.

“Matty Dea down back was super tonight. I thought some of his efforts were outstanding at times.

“Longy on the wing – I thought his intensity to run up and down the field was really pleasing.

“We had good performances from the whole team.”

Although a number of players put their best foot forward, Essendon was defeated by Footscray by four points in a hotly contest game.

“It was a tussle the whole game,” Corrigan said.

“We probably started a little bit slowly. I thought we hit our straps in the second quarter and the game started to unfold the way we wanted it to.

“I thought we started to look after the contest more, we stopped their run and we started to get more entries going forward.

“We probably just needed to reward ourselves more going forward but the pleasing thing going into half time was the game was looking how we wanted it to.

“I thought we defended really well in that third quarter and we started to use the ball well going forward.

“It was just a tight tussle in that last quarter. The effort and the intent was outstanding by the boys, it just comes back to the basic fundamentals at times and doing them really well.

“A couple of times we might have fumbled the ball but I couldn’t question the endeavour of the boys throughout the game.

“It’s more disappointing for them that they lost it by four points but that’s footy and we’ll move on and we will learn from that.

“Hopefully if we are in another situation like that, we will come out on top.”

Corrigan says the team will head back to the track and continue to work on their game plan and consistency.

“It’s about looking at the way we want to play and getting that right from the start, and not being inconsistent or wavering from that,” he said.

“When we responded and played the way in offence and defence that we had spoken about before the game, the game looked really good.

“We just have to have belief that that does work for us and we don’t go away from that at times when it does become more pressured and in their hands.

“We need to trust ourselves and keep going with our own game plan.

“I took many positives out of the game and we can take going forward.”

The Bombers have four wins and five losses heading into the mid-season bye. They are currently sitting in seventh spot with four games still to be played this weekend.

“The VFL competition is pretty even,” Corrigan said.

“Yeah we are sitting at the bottom of the eight at the moment and it would be nice to have a couple more wins but we know the season can really open up in the back half of the year.

“We have to make sure that we start playing some really consistent football and put the whole game together not just patches within games.

“If we are able to do that, we can play some really good football. We have to have the belief we can play like that week in and week out.

“It’s all about bringing the effort and intent that we showed tonight to the season.”