North Melbourne great Adam Simpson has praised the way Essendon closed out the game against GWS on Sunday.
Kyle Langford's decision to find a target laterally rather than risk a behind and bleed the clock right down to zero has been well praised, but Simpson pointed to a different detail of the victory which impressed him.
"(Essendon) get a mark down the line and from a team ethos point-of-view, you've got a few choices. You can close the ground up, can you find one more or can you go backwards and maintain possession and (Peter Wright) is happy to go long down the line," Simpson said on AFL 360.
"We can defend behind that and we get a stoppage, worst case scenario, we've done our job."
"The Giants decided to play an extra forward so (Harry) Himmelberg, a defender, goes in front of the play, so now there's a seven vs six situation happening. The Bombers, to their credit, recognised this. They didn't do much about it initially but (Zach) Merrett, (Andy) McGrath, (Archie) Roberts, they've all recognised they're one short, what do we do about it?
"Oliver is now the spare at the front of the stoppage, he pushes forward a little bit and there is an issue. To their credit, they get another stoppage and the leaders and the defenders work really well together to get the winger behind the play...to get an equalised game."
Simpson, who coached an unsuccessful side during his final years at West Coast, noted that close game scenarios are not practised as frequently at struggling clubs give the breadth of areas which need addressing.
The Bombers' leadership has questioned repeatedly this season with the young players praised for setting the standards, but Andy McGrath and Zach Merrett's instruction, in particular, allowed the Bombers to hold onto the lead.
"They wouldn't have trained this. This is problem solving on the run," Simpson added.
"At the very worst, they made it one-on-one and managed the extra in front of the play.
"It's pretty good on-field leadership."
