Tongues were wagging at Miss Colombia cafe in Middle Park last Monday, where the Collingwood coaching group was having a meeting.

Outside, Zach Merrett, the No. 1 free agent, was walking past with his golden retriever Maya, getting some looseness in the muscles after a combative game against the Blues, and Ed Curnow, the day before.

Eyes darted and heads nodded as the skinny lattes were being poured when a member of the Magpies mob got up and made a beeline for Merrett.

Watch the 2021 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. Every match of every round Live on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

Could it have been an accidental unofficial free agent chat, you know, why let the moment pass?

“Nuh, it was just Hayden Skipworth,” Merrett says.

“He was at Essendon for about 10 years. It was quite funny. I didn’t go in, but it was the coaches meeting.’’

That sort of potential subterfuge and accompanying scuttlebutt will hound Merrett this season.

He is out of contract at season’s end and is thought to be gettable by rivals.

And he is gettable.

Because, he says, he’s not sure if he will be at the Bombers next year.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,’’ he says on Wednesday morning, back outside his favourite cafe.

Don’t overly panic Bombers fans, because while Merrett says he’s unsure about his future, he also says plenty to suggest he ain’t going anywhere.

In fact, he acts and speaks like he could be the Bombers’ next captain.

His reluctance to recommit is not about holding the club to ransom, far from it, but he simply needs to see more stability in a club which has delivered him instability since he arrived from small-town Cobden as pick No. 26 in the 2013 draft.

He’s had Mark Thompson, James Hird, Matt Egan for a handful of games, John Worsfold and Ben Rutten as coaches. And ASADA on top of that.

“That’s five coaches in my first six or seven years,’’ he said.

“You look at the clubs who have been successful and there’s a lot of stability in those clubs and, for me, it was like, when is this coming?

“This year, six or seven games or three or four months is a good sample size, but I’d like to see another few months of footy at least to see how much we can keep aligned as a group.

“Alignment to me is crucial.

“The world we live in is win-loss, it can be dictated to massively if you’re not aligned you can go up and down like a yoyo and I think we have in the past been like that.

“But so far we have improved massively in that space. It doesn’t feel like we’re 2-5.

“It feels like for the first time for me there’s been consistent effort and willingness to have a crack for seven games in a row.

“The season is unfolding how we hoped. The clarity and alignment from all staff and the players is through the roof, the best I’ve seen since I’ve been at the club. By a mile.’’

Are you sure you haven’t decided?

“Clearly the fans will think, why doesn’t he just sign and tell us, but hopefully they say, he’s committed, he’s helping. That’s what I want them to see regardless of any situation.

“I don’t think about the contract. I literally wake up every day and think, ‘how can I win a premiership for Essendon, how can I help Cox, Perkins, Parish, McGrath and that’s what motivates me.’’

He hasn’t set a time frame for his decision.

A CANDID CHAT WITH NEW BOMBERS CHIEF

Essendon was a mess last year. Worsfold wanted to empower the players, the players wanted guidance, and Rutten — known as Truck — was the strategy man in a complex two-coach situation.

A week after the season ended, Merrett called new president Paul Brasher and laid out his concerns and queries.

It wasn’t about the disjointed football department. It was about the club. What is Essendon? Who is Essendon? Why had we forgotten the past? Why was it always about the present and the future?

“We’d been through the ASADA thing and I felt the club was turning (positively) but only for it to go back a few steps last year, I just felt the place could be better,” he said.

“It didn’t feel (like) we’re all aligned as a club … the players aren’t stupid.

“I don’t know if it was the best situation to be involved in with those two (Worsfold and Rutten).

“Truck took over mostly last year but to see him this year, he’s grown into a completely different person and that’s the enjoyment the players are having.’’

Merrett is a “footy nuffy’’.

He loves footy, but also loves footy clubs. The rich history, the stories, the togetherness.

He told Brasher: “I felt we’re disconnected a lot from our history and who we were as a club and who we actually are and where we’ve come from. We moved to the Hangar and it felt (like) we were disconnected a lot from old Essendon. We moved from Windy Hill to the G and we probably lost a little bit of that fabric of who we were. We moved to Marvel from the G, then we moved to the Hangar and lose it again. I didn’t know how to do it, but we needed to reconnect. It didn’t feel right. But that’s what’s happened under Truck.’’

The team trained at Windy Hill over summer, former players were invited to present jumpers before the season and for a time there once a week, players would watch videos, interviews and highlights of Essendon’s history all the way back to McCracken in the 1870s.

It resonated with Merrett who grew up at the feet of Cobden heroes and honour boards and where the footy club was the ‘’heartbeat of the town’’.

It’s why, every day when he arrives at his No. 7 locker, he casts an eye at the names.

“I’ve got Bill Hutchison and, for me, probably Essendon’s best ever player,’’ he said.

“Bill, 290 games, four flags, two Brownlows, seven best and fairests. Every day I look at it. It’s like I’m chasing him in a way. I never got to meet him, but he’s just there every day.’’

It’s a moment of a reflection while on the conveyor belt of progress.

“I felt we never connected back. We got to the hangar and it was ‘move forward, move forward’,” he said.

“We got the ASADA thing and let’s move forward from that, John comes and goes and we move forward again. We never connected back and embraced all our history. It’s almost like we ran away from the past and I think the older players also felt a bit disconnected.’’

He noted that whenever ‘’Essendon people’’ were spoken of, they were the long ago champs and players and people from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2002s.

“But from 2005 to now you don’t really hear about Essendon people, staff or players. With the fabric and the history, that had to be a focus,” he said.

Now, he says, the club “feels different … better’’.

The next major conversation for Merrett was with Rutten.

Again, just after the 2020 season ended, he took a call from the coach when sitting poolside in Townsville.

They spoke for about 90 minutes.

“We spoke how I could add value, how we could add value together.’’

Alignment.

‘IT HURT’: THE LEADERSHIP GROUP AXING

Merrett talks of alignment within the club, but for a time there, also needed alignment with his teammates.

He describes himself as selfish and manic, two traits which dictated how he believed he could be a leader for his teammates.

It led to him being kicked out of the leadership group in 2020, after having captained the Bombers for six games in 2019. It stung badly.

“It hurt for sure,’’ he said.

“It was a weird time. For 48 hours I was thinking “this is f … ed’’, what’s going on.”

Worsfold delivered the news, but not necessarily a depth of reasons. He told Merrett he scored highly, but not high enough in three criteria and was 20th in the fourth criteria.

“That was social leadership,’’ Merrett said.

And there was the problem.

Merrett always seeks counsel. He speaks to Jobe Watson and Brendon Goddard often and manager Tom Petroro. To an ex SAS commander. Even to Joel Selwood.

“Joel is always a message away,’’ he said.

The SAS bloke is his anger management consultant.

“Basically, he said every time you think you’re angry, ring him, say ‘f … you, get the anger out of you and get on with it’. Because no one else cares.’’

Merrett was angry because his teammates didn’t rate him as much as he rated himself. But that anger through 2020 became a lightning rod to discovery.

“I needed to open up a bit more and be more vulnerable in the group,’’ he pondered.

“The new age is even different to when I first walked in. It was head down, ass up and earn respect. Now it’s about being connected and growing relationships.

“It was tough for me. It’s not my natural personality. I think I expected that if I did something at a certain level, everyone would follow. That was my way of leading. I learnt more last year that there’s a different way to influence than just me kicking well or doing extra weights. It’s opened my world. It’s more fulfilling. I feel I’m influencing much greater than I did before.’’

MERRETT’S CAPTAINCY AMBITIONS

So much so, his ambition to captain the club — although he’s considering leaving — is not lost.

He’s not pushing Dyson Heppell, mind you.

“I’ve always tried to drive standards but I’ve got better skills to do it now,” he said.

“At the time, when you’re 24 and 23, you think ‘why the f … aren’t they following why aren’t they listening?’ But now I think my teammates see a place of care. I can massively sense they are. They are all encouraging me to push to be me. Previously, it was, ‘you’re just so hard and so serious all the time’. And that was hard to cop. Like, what else was I going to do, muck around and makes jokes?’’

He says his persona is more like Goddard’s than Heppell’s. “Yeah, definitely more BJ. By a long way and it’s probably why BJ and I got on so well.’’

At 25 and suiting up for his 150th game for the Bombers on Saturday, Merrett is youngish in football terms but old at Essendon.

As much as BJ, Watson and Heppell — “albeit in a shit situation’’— grew his game, he wants to be the same for the likes of Cox, Perkins, Cahill, Reid and others.

“I’m just trying to help them to give them the chance to succeed,’’ he said.

His connection with Rutten, he says, is where it should be.

Still, that’s not going to sway a decision on his future any time soon.

‘’I feel completely devoted and committed right now, but I’m not going to make a full-term decision … that’s where it’s at,’’ he said.

“I genuinely haven’t made up my mind yet.’’

So much so, he didn’t rule out talking to other clubs.

“I’ve said to Tom, you do what you need to do and we’ll chat later on. I’ll definitely do my full due diligence.’’

What exactly does that mean?

“To be honest, and not having been through this situation, I’d have to listen to feedback or guidance from Tommy on that process.’’

Clearly, there’s a process and there’s a reality

And you can’t help feel Merrett, for all his previous misgivings and current dilemma, sounds like Essendon’s next captain.