Bomber coach Kevin Sheedy could not keep the smile from his face after his team’s 66-point win over Collingwood today at the MCG. It was a high skilled and fast paced encounter between the two traditional rivals and Sheedy praised the efforts of his side especially his captain James Hird. Hird was at his brilliant best and instrumental in the Bombers’ win. He finished the match with 27 disposals and five goals. “From our point of view today was a shot in the arm for the club. We’ve sort of been belted around the head by everybody in the last 12 months. The win has given the players a lot of confidence,” Sheedy said.

“Your club gets up there for a couple of years and all of a sudden people feel it’s your time to move over and allow someone else to come along. Well we don’t like to get carted away too quickly so we’ll have to work our backsides off to get back into the top four. I’m hoping that will happen this year, but there is a long way to go yet. It is the first quarter of the season – we have three wins, two losses and an 11 goal win today and Hirdy kicked five of them and won the medal.”

Sheedy said he couldn’t put a value on what today’s win means for the club, considering the changes that have taken place to the playing list over recent years. “We’ve had to restructure our team naturally after some of the decisions that had to be made around the club. We have known that for a couple of years. It has been a pretty good side in the late 90’s and early 2000. We had to sit down and restock and this win will create a lot of confidence in the players. It was an excellent win from that point of view – especially without four or five super players in the side,” Sheedy said.