Season review: Essendon coach Ben Fletcher discusses the club’s Premier Cricket campaign
Essendon’s top-end talent was outstanding but the Bombers lacked depth. How will the club address its needs this off-season?
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It started with a bang but ended in disappointment.
Essendon will look to recruit strongly over winter after finishing 17th in Premier Cricket.
The Bombers began the season with impressive wins over Northcote at Bill Lawry Oval and Melbourne at the Albert but won just one game for the rest of the year – a T20 against Greenvale Kangaroos.
A “behavioural issue” at an end-of-season function then saw three players sacked to cap off the year.
The club’s top-end talent impressed but didn’t have enough support, with depth identified as an focus in the off-season.
Having taken the coaching reins just weeks before the season, Ben Fletcher said the club had taken strong steps forward which didn’t necessarily translate to the scoreboard.
“With a reasonably young list we missed a few opportunities and didn’t get the results we wanted, so it appears bad but internally the guys put a lot of good habits in place,” Fletcher said.
“We had some good individual performances but the middle group of players learnt a lot about their game.
“To be successful you need depth, Fuz (Farzan Chowna) had a breakout year, which was amazing, but I feel the middle group put a big block of work in but didn’t execute on the scoreboard.
“Those building blocks that have been put in place will give them a better chance in the future.”
Chowna was arguably the breakout star of Premier Cricket this season, doubling his previous best run tally.
The young Bombers finished the season with 672 runs at an average of 56 – ranked fifth in the competition – smashing his previous best of 389 runs at 25.93 in 2022-23.
His maiden Premier Cricket century, 134 not out, came against Melbourne in the Round 2 win and was followed up with 111 against Melbourne University.
Captain James Seymour also cracked the competition top-10 run-scorers, tallying 502 at 35.86, but the next best bat was Aiden Salvado with 312, outside the top-50.
With the ball, off-season recruit Nick McGuane delivered 27 wickets to rank in the top-10 bowlers.
Cam McClure collected 23 wickets while juggling state duties but, again, the next best was well down the list with Seymour snaring 11 scalps with his spin.
The Bombers’ attack was hurt by the loss of Tom O’Donnell, who announced his retirement this month.
Fletcher said there was enough talent at Windy Hill to be competitive but the club would look to recruit to boost the club’s fortunes next season.
“I think there’s enough in the list to be competitive, it’s not just a group of kids,” he said.
“We had one guy who’s played more than 90 games of First XI cricket, so it will take time to get games into guys and there will be bumps and bruises along the way.
“I don’t believe we’re the 17th best team.
“We’re definitely in the market to recruit, we feel like we need to top up our top end and bottom end.
“We are recruiting pretty strongly, we’re hungry to recruit, we need to inject a little bit more experience into the club because we don’t want to wait three years, we want next year to be a big year.”
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Fletcher said he was excited by some of the young talent coming through the club, a year after a drought-breaking Dowling Shield triumph.
“There’s a really good group coming through in the Seconds and Thirds that won the Dowling (Shield),” he said.
“Rafa (Muhammad Abdulrafay) took five in the last game, he just turned 18, Archit (Bhatia) played Fours last year and just turned 18, got two good 80s in the Thirds and finished in the Seconds with a 50 in the last game.
“From what I saw across all grades I felt like we were one of the younger clubs in the competition.”
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