Essendon vs North Melbourne Preview & Prediction | 2025 AFL | Regular Season | Round 8

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The Essendon Bombers look to rebound from an ANZAC Day defeat with a win against the lowly North Melbourne Kangaroos.

Kick-off date/time: Thursday 1st May, 2025: UK – 10:30am / Local – 7:30pm / US ET – 5:30am / US PT – 2:30am

How to watch on TV: UK – TNT Sports / US – Some matches are televised on Fox Sports channels

How to watch online: UK – discovery+ & Watch AFL / US – Watch AFL

The prediction

The traditional ANZAC day match up against Collingwood showed the very best and worst of Essendon, an all too familiar story. They were highly competitive in the second and third quarter and in fact edged ahead early in the second half against their more fancied rivals, however their fourth quarter severely let them down and Collingwood's experience was telling as they pulled away late for a convincing victory.

North Melbourne travelled to Port Adelaide off the back of three heavy losses and went some way towards winning respectability back from their own fans. A poor first quarter was followed by three strong quarters that saw them draw within nine points come the final siren and a much more competitive display across the field surely gave hope to Head Coach Alastair Clarkson and their supporters.

Essendon have dominated this match up since Round Eight of 2016 which is as far back as you need to go to see the last time that North Melbourne recorded a victory. That's eleven straight wins for the Bombers over the Kangaroos in that period of time and we think this trend can continue in a high scoring match up.

Essendon vs North Melbourne tip: Essendon Bombers to win & over 179.5 total match points