Essendon’s undisciplined play at stages of tonight’s match against Geelong proved costly according to Mark McVeigh. The statistics sheet read that the Bombers had five more free kicks, but it was the manner of the ones that Essendon gave away that hurt. “I think we gave away a lot of silly free kicks. It cost us badly because it gave them to many easy chances for goals and in the end it was just too much,” McVeigh said immediately after the match.

The Bombers were slow to get off the mark. Geelong looked sharp early and raced to a 26-point lead midway through the first term. To Essendon’s credit they fought back to be within three points at the first change. But it was the Cats that led the way throughout the game.

“They played really well and were consistent across four quarters. They used a lot of short passes effectively and we struggled to shut them down in the backline,” he said.

“I think we might have suffered a little from our big win in Adelaide last week, which is no excuse for our performance. We seemed a bit flat and they just ran the ball better than us.”

Essendon’s inaccuracy in front of goal was the thing that hurt them the most. They kicked seven behinds and two majors in the second quarter, which cost them dearly. “Our set shots for goal were very uncharacterisic. Lloydy (Matthew Lloyd) missed a few which is unusual for him and Rama (Adam Ramanauskas) also missed one or two that he would usually kick,” McVeigh said.