Key questions linger over Essendon’s 2020 draft class ahead of 2024 season

Essendon’s 2020 draft haul of Cox, Perkins and Reid gave fans plenty to get excited about then, but heading into 2024, where exactly do they stand in the pecking order at the Bombers?

Thirty eight months after Essendon drafted Zach Reid, we finally got to see what the fuss was about on Friday.

Essendon is paying free agent Ben McKay up to $1.5 million on a front-ended deal this season and yet it was Reid they trusted to play on the big dog.

He went straight to St Kilda matchwinner Max King in his single half of action and while King finished with four goals, almost all of them were on other opponents including McKay.

To be honest McKay looked as scratchy as most of his teammates in a crushing loss, but let’s not get too concerned as the ex-Roos defender finds his feet.

If Reid can hold together that last line of defence playing on the likes of Tom Hawkins – as he will this week – the flow-on effect is enormous.

Reid holds a key place down back for the Bombers this season. Photo by Michael Klein

McKay gets the second-best forward and can intercept at will if given a favourable match-up, while Jordan Ridley is the big winner.

He and Mason Redman should believe they can play the role St Kilda’s Josh Battle did so well on Friday – dropping off his man to intercept mark or mop up at will as Cal Wilkie and Dougal Howard locked down their men.

Dons fans have been waiting so long for the fruits of Essendon’s Adam Saad and Joe Daniher losses to kick in as they picked up Nik Cox (pick eight), Archie Perkins (nine) and Reid (pick 10) with that year’s stacked draft hand.

And yet here is where it gets interesting – as Reid was stating his round 1 case with authority, Cox was battling for impact like so many Bombers around him.

So many of the players taken early in the Covid-affected 2020 national draft have failed to fire (Will Phillips, Riley Thilthorpe, Denver Grainger-Barras, Elijah Hollands) and yet Cox’s debut season was spectacular.

Playing as a gangly wingman he peeled off 22 games, before injuries restricted him to 11 games in the past two years.

This summer he has been largely uninjured, and yet the issue for Cox is that it is hard to see where Brad Scott plays him if the Dons stay injury-free.

He is a long way from a round 1 lock just when he would have hoped to be blossoming.

Cox has been recast as an intercept defender, and yet with Reid, McKay, Redman and Ridley playing tall (with Andy McGrath, Dyson Heppell and Nic Martin as the rebounders) where does he fit in?

Zach Reid, Archie Perkins and Nik Cox after being drafted in 2020. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Not as a wingman given Xavier Duursma, Martin, recast defender Jake Kelly, potentially Heppell and Sam Durham are ahead of him.

Cox is still a baby in football terms – just 22 – so the challenge is for Brad Scott to maximise his talents this year in Essendon side as deep as it has been for some time.

Pick nine Perkins has barely missed an AFL game in his three seasons – 62 of a possible 68 – yet Jade Gresham’s arrival also means another mouth to feed in the Dons forward line.

Perkins has huge admirers as a mid-forward – he kicked 18 goals in 23 games to go with an average of 15 possessions – yet he had only a single game with AFLCA coaches votes last year.

With Jake Stringer, Jye Menzie (23 goals in 2023), a fit-again Matt Guelfi and Gresham in the forward line his competition has never been greater.

Is Perkins a budding AFL star or a very serviceable half-forward?

Hopefully we know by year’s end.

That 2020 national draft is vexing for so many clubs because while the Victorian players were starved of chances the West Australian and South Australian state leagues got plenty of game time in.

2024 presents as a huge season for Archie Perkins. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Hawthorn chose WA interceptor Grainger-Barras at pick six but if the eastern seaboard leagues had got full seasons in would he have drifted to selection 15 or 20 with more competition?

Now in the Hawks time of defensive need he faces 12 weeks out with turf toe and will get to the end of his fourth year out of contact and with the Hawks unaware if he is just a slow developer or not good enough.

Essendon’s Cox is at least fit and available and sure to get chances as the Dons’ injury list lengthens.

As Brad Scott’s Essendon honeymoon draws to a close it will be a perfect test of his coaching and the club’s improved development program to give him a defined role he can thrive in.