Essendon has gone backwards since Ben Rutten made changes to the team’s defensive system
Essendon has put its faith in coach-in-waiting Ben Rutten but a former assistant at the Bombers has divulged how changes made to the game plan created tension among the coaches and left the team in a state of confusion.
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It is time for Essendon to answer two critical questions.
Are the Bombers in premiership or rebuild mode? And what gamestyle are they going to play?
Ever since football boss Dan Richardson poached coach-in-waiting Ben Rutten at the end of 2018 they have appeared a confused football club.
Let’s forget the free kick paid to Callan Ward on Friday night and instead start with the list.
Chairman Lindsay Tanner expects the Bombers to contend from 2020-2022, which will probably be the final years for Cale Hooker, Michael Hurley, David Zaharakis and Tom Bellchambers.
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The additions of Devon Smith, Dylan Shiel, Jake Stringer and Adam Saad will soften those exits, but the time to strike is clearly now.
However, with a coaching blueprint that has undergone more facelifts than Sam Newman and a game of musical chairs unfolding around Rutten that isn’t going to be easy.
“They’ve massively changed the way they play and changed the list so much and changed the football staff over so much that they’re caught between contending and rebuilding,” former Bombers assistant coach Rob Harding said.
“It’s football’s no-man’s land.”
Rutten is trying to teach the players a whole new philosophy although so far the changes have appeared a touch underwhelming.
The Bombers played finals in 2017 but conceded their team defence was a mess after leaking eight 100-point scores.
“We made some significant alterations to the team defence going into 2018,” Harding said.
“For the first eight weeks we conceded 96 points a game, so we were learning, adapting, adjusting and players were getting better week on week.
“From Round 9 onwards we conceded 76 points per game – in the top six.”
Rutten then joined the club and implemented his team defence, and the Bombers leaked 81 points in 2019.
If you extrapolate the 2020 results to a full game they’re at about 84 points this year.
The Bombers sharply improved from Round 9-23 in 2018 and, under the new team defence model, have regressed in the 31 games since.
“Whether it’s the system itself – and I don’t think it is, because Richmond use it – whether it’s personnel playing the system or whether it’s how the system is being coached, the defensive system is not working for them,” Harding said.
At the end of 2018 some senior players expressed their confidence in the existing game plan.
“The players really believed in what we were doing,” Harding said.
“We’d become a really good pressure team, we played a style that suited us and we used our run off half-back and at half-forward.”
David King said the Bombers’ scoring profile was now out of sync with premiership threats because too many of their goals came from centre bounces and backline plays.
Dig deeper and the problems begin to multiply.
Last year the Bombers were the worst team at allowing a turnover in their forward 50m to travel the length of the ground and this year they are the worst team at allowing any ball from inside their forward 50m to slingshot back.
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As most teams look to lock the ball forward the Bombers are being forced backwards.
“They have to be a back half, counterpunch team rather than a sustainable, fundamentally-sound forward-half territory team like Richmond are, like Port Adelaide are, like Brisbane are, like premiership teams are,” Harding said.
“You can have whatever offensive system you want, but if you have to start in your back 50m all the time it makes it pretty tough.”
Last year the territory debate sometimes saw multiple Essendon coaches push for a forward-half game and Rutten resist.
He instructed the Bombers to roll numbers back as a foldback defence materialised, albeit without the aggression of Richmond’s.
Internally, tensions simmered and cracks started to emerge. The fallout was significant.
Gone from last year were the forward’s coach (Paul Corrigan), the midfield coach (Hayden Skipworth), the offence coach (Harding) and the high performance boss (Justin Crow), not to mention Joe Daniher wanting to escape.
Make no mistake, Rutten is already in charge and “senior coach” John Worsfold is fronting press conferences to discuss someone else’s game plan.
But with Richardson understood to be under pressure to keep his job next year there is a chance Rutten officially begins his coaching career without his No.1 supporter.
That scenario wouldn’t scream stability.
But the Bombers are all-in on Rutten and will keep pulling changes to fit what he wants.
Will the new template fit Essendon?
Harding wasn’t sure.
“If they’re trying to build a Richmond profile list they need elite runners, which they don’t have,” he said.
Like the Tigers, the Bombers appear to have swayed from prioritising inside bulls in their midfield to outside class.
But their list was crafted when James Hird, Mark Thompson and Brendan McCartney were coaching and they preferred contested beasts.
Suddenly, 190cm inside midfielder Kyle Langford is isolated on the outside and out of contract.
Where should the Bombers’ brains trust focus their attention to first?
“Fixing the team defence to play a sustainable forward-half brand of footy is the biggest priority Essendon has right now,” Harding said.