ESPECIALLY after how last week’s match went for her Bombers’ side, there was a big smile on Essendon coach Nat Wood’s face after her side’s win over Carlton on Saturday.

“I was really happy with the way we started the game,” Wood said.

“Obviously we spoke about being off our best last week, and I thought today the players did a really good job of turning up ready to compete and also took our opportunities when we had that first half. Carlton was definitely really good in the second half and equalised a lot of the ball around the middle. But probably just a really good bit of growth for us in that we started well but we were also able to capitalise.”

One issue that plagued the Bombers against West Coast was not capitalising on opportunities, which was not the case on the weekend.

Wood said that against Carlton the Bombers were capitalising on the opportunities.

“I think we had better balance,” she said. “We had some different personnel, we had some different roles as well. We sort of got stuck into a bit of the detail there. We know how explosive Carlton can be around the middle, and we started to see that at the back half of the game, but I thought we were able to take that away from them in the first which gave us some looks forward which was really good.”

Wood had particular praise for Sophie Alexander, who starred in her milestone match.

“She’s terrific Soph” Wood said with a smile.

“We ask a lot of all our players, and particularly when there’s a wind and you’re sort of playing with one forward down and we ask them to get up and down the ground a bit. So to see Soph, she plays so well to our structure. She commands the others to get in a really good spot and I thought today she was terrific at taking her opportunities and when you see players have good games it’s nice anyway but when you see them have a really successful day on a milestone game, it’s extra special.”

With the way the results fell across the weekend, Essendon’s match next weekend against Gold Coast is a big one in the context of the Bombers’ season.

“We’ve sort of seen this as a really good opportunity to test ourselves, see how we stack up against them,” Wood said. “Again like their strengths are different to ours and different to Carlton’s again today, so we’re really looking forward to the game, we’re looking forward to the travel. It’s always good with a part time program being able to spend a bit more time travelling together, and it’s Friday night so we’ll get to work on the review and planning for this week and we’re really excited for the game ahead.”