The Bomber Thompson press conference with the lot

Paul Barbieri
and others
• 5 min read
Mark Thompson
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This one always promised to be special after Richmond’s dramatic 18-point win and Bomber Thompson didn’t disappoint.

Having locked his players away for 45 minutes after the game, the coach barely had time to collect his thoughts before fronting the press, deep in the concrete bowels of the MCG.  

As a result, the interview morphed into an extension of his post-match address to the players, his voice rising in volume and intensity at times as his words transported everyone - from the journos present to those watching at home - to the players’ rooms and what may have been said after the game.

It was magnetic, riveting and funny and hardly surprising Twitter fired up big time over it.

More than anything, in a nice notion for Essendon fans looking ahead, this almost seemed like the driven Mark Thompson, trying to drive home a message to his side, one he may have told his old team down at Geelong back in 2006 when they were on the brink of greatness.

“Today wasn’t nasty or anything,” said Thompson after being asked whether he’d given the players both barrels after the game.

“It was more about when, when, when are you going to change? When is it going to happen, where you take yourself from an average team into a team that consistently plays finals and you can handle the stage and you look the same every week? 

“When, when, when? 

“They do it in patches. It’s not as if I just said to them. It’s not as if they can’t play. 

“They actually had quarters of football against the best. We were within 10 points last week against Sydney based on 20 minutes of football. Just smashed ‘em (the Swans) in the third quarter. 

“We can play. What makes a team fluctuate? That’s what I’m trying to unlock.”

“(So) a little bit of angry Bomber there,” he added. “Yeah, it was fair to say a pretty disappointing night for the football club. It’s hard to be positive when you lose the game to Richmond who wanted to win more than us to play finals. That was disappointing. Can’t take it any other way.”

Thompson wasn’t done there as he had a serious crack at how poor training was reflected on the field.

“If you give the players a choice sometimes at training they’ll muck around with the ball. Instead of someone saying, ‘right, I’m in the right position to kick a goal here at training, I’m going to do it’, they’ll flick one off, you know just muck around and sometimes don’t even get it through the goals. 

“That’s bad training and we constantly had to do that with this group, you know, to straighten ‘em up, nah finish the work. Tonight we never finished our work and it cost us the match.”

And Thompson didn’t let up when asked about Jake Carlisle conceding two 50-metre penalties during the second goal as Bachar Houli went from half-back to 15 metres out to score one of Richmond’s six goals for the quarter.

“The second one was worse, I was a bit frustrated about the second one, clearly," Thompson said. 

"It gave them a goal and in the end might have been the reason why they won. 

"They won by more than that, but you shouldn't give teams free shots of confidence,” he said.

The coach said both Michael Hibberd (hamstring) and skipper Jobe Watson (hip flexor) were likely to return for next week’s clash with West Coast in a much-needed boost of class and enthusiasm as two straight losses leaves their position in the eight seriously vulnerable with three games left.

Thompson acknowledged bringing Watson back may be a risk but said: “It'd be a brave coach who didn't play him.”

And, the coach also had time to be asked about the impending Federal Court Cases as ASADA and the club sharpen their knives ahead of court dates next week.

“I can't talk about that,” he said with a laugh.

“I'll be at work, I won't be watching but yes it's a big, very important week for this part of the whole process and hopefully we get some answers from an independent body that's going to judge all the evidence they hear.

“It'll be welcome to hopefully, finally, wrap it up soon.

“It's been a helluva couple of years.”

Author(s)
Paul Barbieri