Bombers lurch from one crisis to another as Essendon stalwarts demand change amid bombshell conspiracy theory
As Essendon hops from one crisis to another, the plight of new coach Ben Rutten looks increasingly stark. But how did they get here? A remarkable conspiracy theory about the banned Bombers who remained highlights the broken club’s plight.
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Last season as a young Essendon player attempted to establish himself as a regular in John Worsfold’s side a senior player sidled up to him with a conspiracy theory.
As the veteran explained to the naive youngster, the players who had served 2016 drug bans under Essendon’s peptides regime had “contracts” which guaranteed they would never be dropped.
It was said Essendon had been so keen to see its stars return from year-long bans that the club was prepared to do anything possible to get them to sign on the dotted line.
For the player, it explained so much about the way he saw the football club run.
The way some senior players could play outside team rules and still be picked every week.
And the manner in which some stars played on their terms with seemingly no repercussions at the selection table.
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The conspiracy theory was exactly that, with no club able to guarantee a player isn’t dropped, no matter the hardships that have befallen them.
This year Ben Rutten made the hard call to drop Cale Hooker and refused to give Tom Bellchambers a farewell game as he attempted to break or break through.
Yet the reality that it made so much sense to this young player speaks volumes of the crisis now engulfing Essendon.
Joe Daniher and Adam Saad are fleeing for different reasons, Conor McKenna has headed back to Ireland, and Orazio Fantasia has one foot out the door. Others could also be on the move.
This player saw a club with senior team members prepared to openly berate youngsters on the field, saw cliques across the playing group, and saw too many players unwilling to follow the game plan set by Worsfold and Rutten.
Rutten has clearly seen enough that he is prepared to remake the club in his image.
Through the prism of the player’s experience, it explains why the new coach wants to set a hard line agenda that doesn’t see him playing favourites with the club’s older players.
During the AFL’s shutdown earlier this year, Rutten read The Courage To Be Disliked, a book about creating your future rather than being determined by past experiences.
One source suggested he pushes a mindfulness approach for his team, which some players have resisted.
As football boss Dan Richardson said of Rutten this week, he is prepared to put some noses out of joint to create a cohesive working environment.
“Culturally I think there’s a shift taking place,” he said.
“Ben‘s very strong on and very clear with his expectations with players. We need players that are fully committed to his vision, and where we’re taking the club If that means we unsettle or ruffle a few feathers along the way, because we’re asking players to put the team first, then so be it.
“I don’t think we should apologise to anyone, even our fans, if that’s what we’re doing.
“Where we want to get to is to build a team that wins premierships. And that’s what we need to do.”
UNREST
One player manager this week threw up this question: if every Essendon player was out of contract, how many of them would be charging for the door?
It is an impossible question to answer but for chief executive Xavier Campbell and Richardson, it is something they desperately need to get to the bottom of.
The one certainty is that they have the right man as captain, with Dyson Heppell drawing respect across the playing group for his inclusiveness and determination to listen to players across all levels of the list.
But Heppell cannot do it on his own, and with the club’s shifting player leadership group, he has not had a senior core to reinforce the message with him.
This year that leadership group was Heppell, David Zaharakis, Michael Hurley, Devon Smith and Dylan Shiel.
Vice-captain Zach Merrett was dropped, with Joe Daniher and Orazio Fantasia also out of the leadership group.
In 2019 Hurley and Hooker were dumped from the 2018 leadership group to widespread disgruntlement.
Ideally Heppell would have a core of a few confidantes relentlessly driving the message with him at every turn.
Instead he isn’t sure who his leaders are – and by extension neither do the players given it is a player-driven vote – in any given season.
THE COACH
Right now, the Dons have some hallmarks of the Western Bulldogs in the dying days of Brendan McCartney’s reign.
A whispering campaign about disgruntled players, a hard task master of a coach and cliques between different levels of players.
The jungle drums beating about senior players desperate to exit, about a playing group dissatisfied and restless.
The difference was that McCartney could be moved on, admitting to the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast this year he had lost the common touch and relationship building that was a hallmark of his earlier coaching.
Essendon’s coach in Rutten hasn’t even officially coached a single AFL game.
Fox Footy analyst David King said this week Rutten’s only priority over summer was to create relationships with his players.
Then bring them with him on a magical ride that players can invest in, believing their coach has their back.
As Ross Lyon told Footy Classified on Wednesday: “There are dynamic and mechanics.
“The mechanics are the Xs and Os. If you haven’t got your dynamic right, you can have the best Xs and O‘s …. Fix the dynamic which is team spirit and commitment and forge ahead that way.”
Saad’s problem wasn’t with Rutten, who spent more time on the defensive back six in the last month of 2020, an investment appreciated by the defensive unit.
Saad made clear to Richardson in his discussions in the past few weeks a handful of extremely specific issues he had with the club that didn’t relate to his role in defence.
Yet the club still chose to give him a little backhander on the way out by talking about wanting players who played unselfish roles.
As one player manager with disgruntled players said recently of Rutten, his brusque manner would be fine if he had taken the time to cuddle the players.
When Chris Fagan bakes his players at half time, it’s such a rarely used tactic it resonates from a coach seen as a confidante and father-figure.
Rutten hasn’t yet been able to establish himself with enough of the Essendon list.
He is not by his very nature the kind of warm personality prepared to stop and chat to players in the corridors, and if Worsfold wasn’t either, his past successes gave him that aura of respect.
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REBUILD OR NOT?
Essendon has always felt as if it could get through a crisis without having to rebuild.
In a recent Sacked episode former Bombers chief executive Peter Jackson said the club’s failure to rebuild in 2002 after trading stars Blake Caracella, Justin Blumfield and Chris Heffernan because of salary cap issues helped consign it to footy’s wilderness.
The same thing happened, albeit in vastly different circumstances, when Essendon felt the full wrath of sports supplements scandal just over a decade later.
The club felt it was bullet proof.
Internally, the Bombers are again confident things can turn.
Richardson admitted this week he had been drawn back to those disastrous days at Richmond in late 2016 when he considered Essendon’s plight.
He is right that much can change in a summer.
Back then Richmond had a beloved coach retained because of player power, where many Essendon players are unsure what to make of Rutten.
And Richmond had a trio of finals berths from 2013-2015 before the disastrous 2016 season, having won 15, 12 and 15 games in the previous three seasons.
Essendon hasn’t won 15 home and away games since its Grand Final season of 2001.
5,880 #MightyBombers
— Days Since Essendon Won a Final (@EFCFinals) October 10, 2020
Some Essendon stalwarts suggest the move from the spiritual heartland of Windy Hill to the open space lands at Tullamarine in 2013 compares to the disconnect between the club and its members.
One leading Essendon figure told the Sunday Herald Sun the move from Windy Hill and the closure of the museum cut at the fabric of the famous club.
“It (the museum) had Essendon‘s heart, its soul, and its culture … we have moved from a great club to a great facility,” he said.
“They forgot to take their heart and soul to Tullamarine. It is a soulless place.
“Most of the other clubs turned their dilapidated grounds into a heartland; Essendon has turned its heartland into a facility.”
Another former Bomber said the current administration shouldn‘t fear past players and officials having a say.
“The club is going through the worst phase in its history,” he said.
“Can someone just give us our club back?”
Former longtime staffer Craig Yorston — a club life member who was a trainer and masseur for 30 years — expressed his frustration on Friday.
“I’m a life member and I’m now embarrassed with the direction our once great club is headed,” Yorston wrote on social media.
“Make no mistake, as has been said, it ALL has to do with culture.
“It’s been completely destroyed over the last 10 – 12 years. There is no culture inside the club now.”
THE NEW PREZ
If Essendon’s outgoing president Lindsay Tanner was sometimes seen as “a part-time president”, the man who has taken over from him threatens to be anything but.
Paul Brasher has already reached out to a host of Essendon people – past players, sponsors, coterie groups and members.
It is understood one benefactor was unhappy he had little or no correspondence with the club – which could partly be blamed on the stand down of sponsorship staff this year – throughout the 2020 season.
The Herald Sun’s Mick Warner called on the Bombers to undertake a comprehensive “warts and all style” review, with many Bombers greats agreeing with the call.
Brasher has promised the club will be more aggressive than it has in recent years.
“Rightly or wrongly, we were seen as a bit of an outcast in the AFL community (after the supplements scandal),” Brasher said.
“Is it possible that caused us to feel as if we didn’t have the right to have a loud voice within the community and that therefore we were perhaps a bit passive in what we said externally?
There is so much uncertainty about the Bombers heading into 2021, but Brasher is on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of what is wrong.
What that means for an ailing Essendon, only time will tell.
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Originally published as Bombers lurch from one crisis to another as Essendon stalwarts demand change amid bombshell conspiracy theory