KEVIN Sheedy sat next to Neale Daniher at a business lunch yesterday, but if the game's pre-eminent figure was feeling under any pressure from his protege, then you would not have known it.

Sheedy is aware that his record of four flags stacks up well against Daniher's zero from 10 seasons at Melbourne, even if there is some of the usual push for change in the corridors of power at Windy Hill.

His comment this week, when asked about the possibility that a newly freed Daniher might replace him, said it all: "You're going to have to be a very good coach to replace me."

He is a dangerous man under the pump, and perhaps the most poignant statement made by Daniher this week as he announced his decision to step aside was that he had known that a bad year in the last season of a contract could be fatal.

Cunning, old Sheeds has never indulged himself thus, and it looks as though he might just manage it again in 2007.

Sheedy set his side up beautifully last night, with only three forwards patrolling the 50-metre zone so that Scott Lucas, Matthew Lloyd and Alwyn Davey could take advantage of Melbourne's somewhat flaky defence.

Once Jason Johnson and James Hird began smashing Melbourne out of the centre bounces, Melbourne's back half was left exposed and Essendon banged on eight first-quarter goals — two each to Lloyd and Lucas and one to Davey.

Lloyd's second goal, an arrow-straight set shot from 40 metres, gave him 800 in AFL football, a feat matched by only nine other players in history.

Lucas was no less dangerous and with Hird proving irrepressible in the middle, and Dustin Fletcher sweeping across the back, Essendon's veterans showed that they are desperate for another taste of September football.

It is a wonderful irony that in a season where Essendon's list has been rebuilt, it is the familiar foundation that has held up best; made the biggest difference.

But the tone of the match had not been set, and it was a shootout played with low physical intensity, a game played in what might nowadays be called the Victorian style. Essendon lulled itself into a sense of comfort that proved to be dangerous.

The symbolism was powerful when Hird the magnificent conceded two 50-metre penalties, an almost unheard-of outpouring of anger from Essendon's icon. Once, he grew so angry with an umpire's adjudication of holding the ball against him that he wrestled with Brad Green; later, his late challenge on Ricky Petterd after the Demon had marked was a gift of a Melbourne goal.

Daniher declined the flood, even when his team slumped to a 37-point deficit at quarter-time, and opted for man-on-man football. Hence when Essendon positioned eight men in his forward line, Daniher found eight forwards to stand beside them.

Melbourne shuffled its midfield, found some passion after the break and Essendon's defence was shown to be just as porous in the second quarter as Melbourne's had been in the first.

Here, Sheedy's one big risk came back to hurt him. In placing Mark Johnson deep in defence as a marker for Russell Robertson, Essendon's coach had conceded height and marking power. But the benefit was to allow Fletcher to pick up first-gamer Michael Newton and use his offensive skill.

For half the game, it scarcely mattered. Robertson was ineffectual. But in the third quarter, when Melbourne surged to the lead, Robertson kicked three goals on Johnson.

Lucas had only six seconds to spare when he sagged to the back of a pack, crumbed and booted the winning goal. The line between triumph and despair was that fine.