Essendon banned players: Bombers optimistic of retaining all 12 banned players

ESSENDON is becoming increasingly optimistic it might be able to pull off a football miracle — retaining all dozen banned Bombers.

Jobe Watson yet to make a decision on his future. Picture: Colleen Petch

ESSENDON is becoming increasingly optimistic it might be able to pull off a football miracle — retaining all dozen banned Bombers.

It won’t say it publicly, and no one truly knows the emotions swirling in the pit of Jobe Watson’s gut.

But when the WADA shock waves crashed over Essendon’s headquarters in mid-January, it wasn’t hard to envisage half a dozen of those players never returning.

This week Dyson Heppell officially returned to the fold, perhaps the least surprising decision of all.

The Herald Sun reported last month he wanted to stay and was prepared to captain this club.

He is young, he is contracted long-term and he believes he can win a premiership at Essendon.

Yet what it does do is add to the momentum that continues to snowball with the signings that started with Heath Hocking six weeks ago.

Momentum that means at worst Essendon might lose Watson and perhaps a middle-tier players like Ben Howlett or Tayte Pears.

That pair are still considering their options, but Essendon’s fears of losing Michael Hurley are abating by the week.

What those who predicted rivals might pick off Essendon’s players underestimated is the bond that this multi-year crisis has created.

Instead of ripping apart these 12 players in recriminations and infighting it has forged an extraordinary connection.

They have confided in each other and shared raw and emotional confessions, aware no one else could understand their particular situation.

And it has allowed them to grieve together, a process many of them are now coming out of with just four months until a potential mid-September training return.

In short, they want to stay together as a group.

Essendon swingman Cale Hooker signed five-year deal. Picture: Eugene Hyland

Free agent Cale Hooker has shaped as a key figure in the continuing momentum, the cheery full back a popular and engaging teammate.

He is close with fellow West Australian David Myers — who signed on Wednesday — a senior player who had carried as much anger about the supplements scandal as anyone.

He is especially close with Watson, whose fitness and physical condition after hiring a personal trainer has his confidantes in awe of his current shape.

Essendon is increasingly hopeful Watson will want to return to play alongside Hooker and his teammates rather than drift off quietly into the night.

“Would he really be getting this fit if he was about to retire,’’ is a popular refrain at Essendon, although Watson deserves the time and space to make his own mind.

His father Tim told SEN he still hadn’t made up his mind, unsure his fitness base was an indication of a likely return.

“I haven’t had that conversation with him. I know he’s overseas at the moment and he’s training and he’s had a personal trainer and he’s doing all sorts of things to keep fit.

“I look at that and I think, ‘OK, if he’d decided one way or the other, he probably wouldn’t be keeping as fit as he is’.”

In Watson’s last AFL game — his 200th — he looked as if he carried the weight of the world as he collected just nine ordinary possessions.

It was later revealed he was carrying a shoulder injury that needed surgery, but he had confided to teammates his well of motivation had run dry.

After three and a half years of this drama, he couldn’t care less what anyone but his friends and family think.

Essendon defender Michael Hurley and Tom Bellchambers. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

But does he want to go out that way, or returning to an Essendon team that will could be a finals contender?

The Dons believe the team that played Sydney last Saturday could be improved by 15 players by Round 1 next year.

Add in four All Australians in Hooker, Hurley, Watson and Heppell.

Hope Tom Bellchambers and Travis Colyer can put together flawless pre-seasons.

Throw in Jayden Laverde, Kyle Langford, Darcy Parish, Aaron Francis.

And retain the finds of the 2016 season — including Michael Hartley, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, Matt Dea, Orazio Fantasia and next level Dons David Zaharakis and Zach Merrett.

Wouldn’t Jobe want to play with them again?

Regardless, Essendon can again spy in the near future that day when it can move on, safe in the knowledge most or all of its stars have returned.

It will be a mighty day for the patient fan base, one to survey a finals campaign ahead rather than wonder how it might replace the players it has lost.