Overcoming a drastic schedule change is part and parcel of having the privilege to play on ANZAC Day and Essendon coach John Worsfold says his side is well prepared for the next two weeks.
After recording an exciting 22-point win over Port Adelaide on Sunday, the Bombers have embarked on a 10-day break ahead of their traditional clash with Collingwood on April 25.
Just four days after that blockbuster the team will have to quickly regroup for its game against Melbourne, but Worsfold said the club had a plan in place to overcome both the long and short breaks.
“That’s been mapped out for a fair while so we’ll reassess that, as we always do, depending on how the players pull up,” Worsfold said after Sunday’s win.
“We’ve been talking about it for a couple of weeks as well in terms of the long break leading into it and how we manage players.”
The Magpies have been in strong form recently and will enter the match off two comfortable victories over Carlton and Adelaide.
Worsfold said Collingwood had clearly improved this season and its 48-point thrashing of the Crows away from home in wet and wild conditions last week was particularly impressive.
“I enjoyed that game, it was a good game. Considering both the conditions and the opponent, it was pretty impressive.
“I would expect they’ve improved, yeah absolutely. They’ve had another summer working towards what they want to build and I’ve been pretty impressed with their footy so far for them this year.”
Worsfold said he was satisfied with his side’s form reversal on Sunday after suffering successive defeats to Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs respectively.
“I thought the contest stuff was pretty even last week, so it was the uncontested stuff that was really poor last week and I think that was a lot better tonight,” he said.
“We showed that we learn, we responded well to playing below our best last week and were back a lot closer to our best this week.
The Bombers showed significant improvements in pressure off the back of the disappointing loss to the Bulldogs, and Worsfold was particularly happy with the output of his forwards, with Orazio Fantasia (six tackles), Josh Green (four) and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti (four) worrying Port Adelaide’s defenders.
“We had maybe 13 or 14 more inside-50s tonight – that came from better ball movement – but it did (also) come from some pressure in the forward line.
“We know that that is a part of our game that we think is generally pretty good, last week that plus some of the other things I’ve talked about were off a bit.”
Key defender Mitch Brown was a late withdrawal from the contest due to calf tightness, but like-for-like replacement Michael Hartley was ready for his chance to return to the line-up.
Worsfold praised the performance of Hartley, who gathered 14 disposals and led the side for disposal efficiency (92.9 per cent) and one-percenters (eight).
Hartley spent time on a number of opponents, but was particularly good on Power spearhead Charlie Dixon.
“He’s really working hard on his game, he brings a lot of good stuff to our defence,” Worsfold said.
“He’s got a lot of stuff to take himself to become an even stronger defender and he’s working so hard on it, he’s really committed to it.
“He was on a very good opponent tonight and I thought he held his own.”
