""They have played pretty well and they have got a good, tight defence when you look at their points against,’ Sheedy said to the Adelaide media this afternoon.
""Goal-wise we want to get somewhere near where we did last week (twenty one) and we shared it pretty well. We had 12 goal-kickers rather than having Matthew Lloyd kick eight or Scott Lucas kicking seven.
""It was a good all round effort. Kepler Bradley went to full forward and should have kicked three goals. We need that sort of effort tomorrow night – we didn’t see that against Port Adelaide.""
But for the game plan to work, the Essendon midfield must win its fair share of the football and that will be the challenge, according to Sheedy.
""They have an excellent midfield that works very well defensively, not many of them go forward. Adelaide has kicked the ball inside 50m more than us this season but they have scored less than us. If we can get our inside 50m up somewhere near theirs, then hopefully we can outscore them.""
Adelaide coach Neil Craig today described the game as a mini-final and Sheedy wasn’t about to disagree. ""A win would keep them in the hunt for a top-four finish and we really need to keep our finals hopes alive. We have lost a couple by a goal or two and we could have been on six wins but we are not, we are on four and we have to live with that.""
""We have got a better team together over the past month than we had the previous month and we are playing better football. We had a lot out early – I think we have played more players than any other club this season,’ Sheedy said.
