Bombers vow to finish AFL season on high

Essendon are vowing to finish their disappointing AFL season on a high with a win and restore some pride when they face Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday night.

After a sterling start to the season, the Bombers have lost nine of their past 12 games including the last five in succession to blow their finals chances.

Coach James Hird wasn’t concerned about stopping the Magpies’ push for a top-four position in the final-round clash, preferring to focus on his team ending the season well.

“It’s not about Collingwood, they’ve got their finals series to play … it’s about us, about restoring pride to ourselves and making sure we go into 2013 with some confidence that we do know how to play football,” he said.

“The boys had a good chat about how they want to prepare for this week and how they want to play and we’ll be expecting a much better effort than the last two weeks.”

Despite their plummet down the AFL ladder the Bombers are on track to post their best win/loss record in 10 years should they repeat their round five victory over Collingwood.

Hird felt the team had definitely improved.

“In certain areas we have.

“The first half of the year it’s on record we improved quite a bit.

“The injuries have taken a toll on the club the players and the coaches probably haven’t handled that as well as we could have.

“It’s been a very disappointing last seven weeks there’s no doubt.”

Hird said he would be looking for his team to show greater intensity around the ball and run the game out.

“There’s no doubt Richmond and Carlton both out-spread us so there’s a big emphasis on being able to run the game out and compete inside the contest and outside as well.”

He said the post-season review would try to uncover where and why the Bombers’ season fell apart.

“It’s hard to know whether they got ahead of themselves, whether injury caught up with them, whether the training load caught up with them, whether they’re ready to perform for 22 weeks with the group we’ve got,” he said.

“We’ll sit down at the end of the year and look at the reasons why we think it tipped over at the end and how we do it better next year.”

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