ESSENDON coach Matthew Knights praised some of his youngsters after the Bombers' 91 point drubbing by the Swans today.
“I thought Tom Hislop, David Myers, Darcy Daniher, those sorts of young men handled themselves pretty well. I was pleased with Kyle Reimers too. Those guys were our shining lights,” Knights said after the game.
Daniher was given the tough task of marking Swans on-baller Adam Goodes, who ended the match with 27 disposals.
“I thought we'd give him an opportunity to run with [Goodes]," Knights said
"I thought Darcy did a reasonable job. Goodes still took the points , but Darcy did a good job.”
Knights said he felt his side was “clearly better” around the stoppages for 70 minutes.
“But they [the Swans] started to win the stoppages and be very physical in the third quarter which caused a lot of problems for us.
“Our younger bodies with their tackling started to fall off Sydney half-way through that third quarter and once you fall off those tackles, and they get those handballs out and overlap, and that makes it difficult for your defence and they start to score heavily. That's when our tackling really started to disintegrate.
“Five, 10 minutes into the third quarter and you're ten points down against a very, very good side on their home turf. What we spoke about was holding our standards in terms of our hard-ball gets, loose ball gets.
“It's disappointing when you're 10 points down 10 minutes into the third quarter and most people in the ground would've thought, it's game on here.
"But they really dominated in the stoppages and the clinches and then they get rolling and run forward uninhibited.”
Kinghts said fatigue was a factor.
“I thought we matched Sydney for 40-50 minutes and we actually gained ground.
“Unfortunately a few of our mids – Mark McVeigh, Jason Winderlich, Sam Lonergan coming back – I thought they got a little fatigued as the day went on and the Swans midfield were able to keep persisting at the same speed and intensity.
"I think that really told at the end of the game.”
