ESSENDON AFLW coach Nat Wood had a joyful tone to her voice on Saturday night after her side’s win over Richmond.

“I thought the game by both teams was really good,” she said.

“I thought both teams had some really good passages. Richmond was looking really good in the third, covering the ground really well, bringing it out of congestion in waves and numbers as well. So probably happy that we were able to find a way within the quarter. I thought the players wrestled some of that back in the fourth, but really happy with that.”

Wood was particularly pleased by how well rounded her team’s performance had been, and how the team had grown to not be so overly reliant on captain Bonnie Toogood up forward.

“It was a focus for us coming in to be a well rounded team performance,” she said. “Probably what I guess you’re used to seeing is that typical forward of Bonnie, that hitting up and those big strong marks. We asked Bonnie to do a really important job for us late in the game as a high forward up around the stoppage to negate some of Richmond’s spread and movement that they clearly had in the third.”

“So we thought Bonnie was huge for us in the fourth quarter and probably didn’t look like what people would normally associate with her as being a huge performance, but again having our leaders being able to play team roles. When your leaders are willing to put the team first to get some ascendency, then it’s a really easy message to sell with the rest of the group and I thought that a lot of other players stood up around them as well.”

She was also pleased by the way the team’s midfield is shaping up at the moment, and how star Madison Prespakis dealt with the tag Richmond gave her.

“It’s obviously been something we’ve been trying to chip away at and I thought Stephanie Wales is doing such a great job and starting to get some real good clearances and some consistency for us,” she said.

“I thought Mads was wearing a pretty heavy tag today and I thought there was probably a lot of focus from Richmond on that. Mads’ maturity to wear that and allow us to get another free player in other areas just shows great team growth and I think understanding from the team that if the team’s winning the ball out, that’s great, it doesn’t necessarily matter who. But I thought Mads still did a fantastic job of getting mid-20 disposals and I thought Mads worked her way through that attention really well.”

Although the Bombers are on a nice run at the moment, Wood said that the cliches are still the main focus.

“We’re really trying to focus on the things that we can control,” Wood said.

“I know it’s so cliché but what we didn’t control two weeks ago very well was how we turned up against Collingwood and that was probably the thing we were most disappointed with, that we didn’t give ourselves the best opportunity to show our game and so that’s what we’ve been trying to focus on.”