Essendon’s trip down the highway to Warrnambool showed promise, but the Bombers couldn’t come away with the points against Geelong in the AFLW.
In the first women’s country match on Sunday, the two teams put on a show for fans including many family members of local-born Essendon coach Natalie Wood.
The Bombers dominated a lot of the contest led by Madison Prespakis who had the ball on the string in the first half.
Geelong’s defence as it has most of the season repelled many attacks, giving the Cats a 12 point lead at half time.
The Bombers scored the first goal of the third quarter and despite again dominating general play couldn’t capitalise.
Co-captain Bonnie Toogood finally got the Bombers second of the term in the final few seconds of the quarter to level the scores going into the final break.
Two goals to Cats forward Chloe Scheer in the final quarter gave her side the 6.7 (43)-4.4 (28) win.
Paige Scott and Bonnie Toogood kicked two goals apiece for the Bombers.
Prespakis was best on ground with 37 possessions, the second most in an AFLW game.
Bombers coach Natalie Wood said they continue to have honourable losses.
“On one hand it’s a credit to the way the players are going about the games week in, week out, but it’s disappointing again not be able to finish the game off well,” she said.
“We spoke at the end of last week against Brisbane our clearances weren’t at the level and we probably haven’t had a game this year been able to to get a lot of ascendency getting our hands on it first in the middle.
“It was a focus and I thought the girls did an outstanding job of that. We moved some players around, able to get some better numbers and connection.
“We dropped away again going inside 50, at times some of our connection was as good as we’ve had, but were not consistent yet.
“Real credit to Geelong.”
The Bombers sit in 12th spot with two wins.
This week they face Sydney on Saturday at IKON Park in the second last round of the regular season.
In other results on the weekend, Carlton was too good for St Kilda, Richmond beat West Coast on the road, Gold Coast proved too strong for Sydney, Adelaide had no issues against Fremantle, the Brisbane Lions kept their winning run against North Melbourne going, Hawthorn continued their hot run against Port Adelaide, Melbourne smashed the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood beat the Greater Western Sydney Giants.
