Footscray’s VFL season is over after suffering a 66-point defeat at the hands of Essendon in Saturday’s First Semi Final at North Port Oval.
 
The Bombers, kicking with the breeze, were on the attack early, Kyle Hardingham kicking the first of the day before a mini tug of war ensued as light rain made the conditions difficult for both sides.
 
Tom Boyd’s second goal of the opening term had the Scray within a point in the shadows of quarter time before a late goal from Essendon’s James Polkinghorne gave the Bombers a seven point buffer going into the first break.
 
But that was about as good as it got for Footscray.
 
Essendon would go on to kick 15 of the next 20 goals to comfortably advance to next week’s Preliminary Final against Williamstown.
 
A disappointed Coach Ashley Hansen said that he was reasonably happy with his team’s first quarter showing but it was all downhill from there.
 
“I was quite happy with that first quarter – just had to fix a few things up – but our second quarter was really poor,” he said.
 
“We failed to be adventurous with our ball movement and just couldn’t hit the scoreboard after quarter time,” he said.
 
The ever prolific Prismall (20 disposals) saw a bit of the footy and the Hayes boys, JD and Will (19 and 15 touches, respectively) were busy, but it was Ayce Cordy who was awarded best on ground honours on a day when not a lot of Dogs had stand out games.
 
“Ultimately, we just didn’t have enough winners on the ground that won their position, unfortunately, and then we had a few guys coming back from injury and you can’t rely on those players to come in and win it for us.”
 
“Finals football is a collective effort.  Individuals don’t win finals, teams do and we didn’t have enough winners that combined to be a strong team.”
 
The Essendon lead got out to as many 73 late in the final term but a reflective Hansen was measured in his message to the team post match.
 
“I thanked them for the year and their efforts because we finished top 4 which was a great achievement over 20 weeks.  Despite the results of the past two weeks, we deserved the opportunity to play two finals.”
 
“Off the back of that I told them to really reflect on the lessons they’ve learnt over the last two weeks in regards to finals football and what it takes to win those games because for us to continue to develop as a side – which we will because many of them were playing in their first final series at senior level – they have to understand the importance of a few of those elements to take them forward in coming years.”
 
Footscray    3.1   4.4   6.5     8.9     (57)
Essendon    4.2   9.4   13.9   19.9  (123)
 
Goals:              Boyd 2, Hayes, Jamieson, McLean, Talia, Campbell, Buchanan
Disposals:       Prismall 20, Darley, J. Hayes 19, Hrovat 16, W. Hayes 15
 
Best:                A. Cordy, J Hayes, M. Austin, N. Hrovat, L. Webb