West Coast and Essendon named their final teams for Sunday’s round 12 clash at Optus Stadium, with the Eagles unchanged after their showing against Collingwood and the Bombers reshuffled again in a season sliding out of reach.
The search for AFL scores today has another layer this weekend because the match brings together two sides stuck near the bottom of the table. West Coast, 3-8 before the first bounce, were still carrying the momentum of a surprise win over Greater Western Sydney at home two weeks earlier, while Essendon arrived at 1-10 and sitting last on the ladder after one win in the past year.
That made the team sheets matter as much as the contest itself. West Coast kept faith with the group that pushed Collingwood, while Essendon sent out Nik Cox, Elijah Tsatas, Will Setterfield, Saad El-Hawli and Max Kondogiannis after Sam Durham, Matt Guelfi, Mason Redman, Jye Caldwell and Andy McGrath all went out through injury concerns. McGrath’s exit through the medical room before the match was the clearest sign of how brittle the Bombers had become.
For Essendon, the line-up was only part of the story. The club had already moved on coach Brad Scott after its latest loss, and the weight of the season has now settled on a group trying to salvage something from a year that has left it fearing a second wooden spoon since 1933. West Coast have their own problems, but the Eagles at least came in with a recent home win on the board and a team that had not been forced into another round of changes.
The match was set for 5.20pm AWST at Optus Stadium, with West Coast and Essendon closing out the round in a meeting that offered more about where both clubs stand than about where either one is heading. Melbourne’s trip to Greater Western Sydney at TIO Traeger Park in Alice Springs was also on the fixture card, but the biggest attention stayed on Perth, where the Bombers had to answer the damage of another bruising week before the result even began to take shape.
