""They played very well up in Sydney, I watched the game. It’s a difficult game for us because obviously they have the opportunity to play in the finals and we haven’t and they will be desperate naturally,"" Sheedy explained to the media at the airport today as the Bombers checked in for the flight to Perth.
""But we will play well. We played pretty well last week. We won the first half and the last quarter but we didn’t win the match because we let ourselves down in that third quarter.""
And while wins are important, the feeling from the coach was about continuing the journey of redevelopment. His conviction remains the same - the next nine weeks are about setting up the 2007 season and doing whatever that takes to rebuild the Essendon Football Club.
""We have to win a game. It will be the youngest side that I have ever taken over to Perth, but that’s where we are as a club and we have to give all of our young players as much opportunity as we can.
""You have to give them all the support you can and encourage them to take every risk they can and grab that opportunity we are presenting as a club.
""When you are on the bottom that’s what you should do. You shouldn’t just go and play experienced players and reward them for not winning enough games.
""Our forward line will be something like Patrick Ryder, Kepler Bradley and Courtney Johns so they are fairly young players.
""They (Fremantle) are playing a lot of young players in their back half and there are new players they are putting and we need to do the same thing basically.
""So we could have one of the youngest Fremantle back lines on one of the youngest Essendon forward lines you’ll ever see.
The game will be made more interesting as it is the first time Essendon has played Fremantle since former Bomber assistant coaches Mark Harvey and Robert Shaw made the move across the Nullarbor.
""They know our players more than anybody over there so Harvs will be at his aggressive best, Shaw will be trying to work out how they can isolate some of our players in the goal square. There will be a lot of tactical shenanigans,"" Sheedy jested.
""But in the end it is hard to play tactical footy when you have a lot of young players out there because they are just starting to get their confidence of playing on a big stage.""
To watch the full press conference on Bomber.tv click here.
