It was a full team performance from Essendon in its elimination final against Collingwood last Sunday. Assistant coaches Wayne Schultz (backline), Ben Patrick (midfield) and Nick Daffy (forward) discuss the performances of their best players…

Jackson Merrett

“He played mainly as a high forward and played that well. His running and resetting and reading the cues was elite, really. There were a couple of goals we got from Jacko reading the cues, resetting and getting some fantastic run towards goal, which is what he’s about – being such a smart player. His ball control was good and his possessions were clean so he had a pretty big day.” –Daffy

Sam Draper

“He pretty much rucked solo for the whole game. He had a little bit of breathing space in the middle of each quarter but his efforts throughout the whole game were super. He dominated the hit-outs and was able to follow up at ground level really well. That was the pleasing thing – that he was able to fight through a fair bit and really build on the form he’s had over the past six to eight weeks. With Leuenberger being out of the team, he’s been able to take the responsibility. It’s really helped his game having more ruck time, so he’s really grown into the role.” – Patrick

Kobe Mutch

“Mutchy competed really well this week. He had a couple of different roles he played throughout the game and adapted really well to those. He was very hard at the contest, he was very clean at the contest and then once the contest finished he was able to use his running ability to get out.” – Patrick

Josh Green

“Greeny loves being close to goal. He had a day out where he kicked five but his work up close to the contest was really good as well, so he had a really good spread of a day. He played up high and helped with connection but when he was needed deep he really made an impact near the goal. He finished off well, which is what we need from such an experienced player.” – Daffy

Jordan Ridley

“It’s the second week in a row where he’s played an outstanding match for us. He had multiple goals to play for the team and each time he had a role to play whether it was tall, small, high or deep. He just played his role extremely well, did the team things and what we focus on down back.” – Schultz

Brandon Zerk-Thatcher

“Zerky had a match-up where we didn’t want to take away his offensive side. It wasn’t a direct lock-down role, it was a match-up job on [Alex] Fasolo which we felt he hadn’t done yet and would be great for his development; we thought it was the best match-up for us. Zerky did a super job in his one-on-one match-up and on the flip side, he put things to our advantage in the way he played his role.” – Schultz