By Jake Niall
Elijah Tsatas was a player in whom Essendon invested considerable hope as the club’s first top-five draft pick since the troubled days of 2015-16.
Tsatas, as scouts from clubs knew, possessed power, a burst from stoppage and had the knack for winning the ball in the under 18s. At 187 centimetres, he was taller than many of the smallish Bomber midfielders, albeit not a beast like Patrick Cripps or Christian Petracca.
Elijah Tsatas of the Bombers.Credit: Getty
But, as the Bombers would discover, there was a snag: his disposal by foot.
Whether Essendon should have known there was a kicking issue – technique or decision-making – is a matter of conjecture among other clubs. Some recruiters – and they were unwilling to put their names and clubs to such assessments – felt Tsatas’ kicking wasn’t a major issue.
“I didn’t see a big problem from his kicking as such,” said one experienced recruiter. “He wasn’t an elite kick, but he wasn’t a poor kick by any stretch.”
But three others did see a kink, and downgraded Tsatas accordingly.
Essendon might have chosen Mattaes Phillipou before St Kilda, having been linked to him pre-draft. Or they could have picked the gifted Bailey Humphrey, whom the Demons were willing to forfeit multiple first rounders for but was eventually taken by Gold Coast immediately after Tsatas.
But they didn’t. For the Bombers, it’s a case of love the one you’re with.
Rather than bemoaning a flaw in Tsatas’ disposal by foot, Essendon’s coaches have undertaken what might be termed “the Tsatas Project” – the task of seeking to improve his foot skills/decisions to the greatest extent possible.
Coach Brad Scott estimated the specific time spent on Tsatas’ kicking as close to replicating what the players did on the training track.
Tsatas (third from left) before his debut in 2023.Credit: Getty Images
“Look, in very rough terms, [Tsatas does] double the amount of time we spend on the training track,” Scott told this masthead in an interview in late February.
Tsatas was working indoors at the Hangar, outside on the oval – “everywhere”, said Scott. “He’s probably doing our football program, plus that again, in terms of individual skill development.”
David Rath, the Essendon assistant who entered football as a biomechanist and worked alongside Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn for 14 years, has been the primary coach dealing with Tsatas’ kicking, which the unrefined numbers show to be somewhat below-par at both VFL and AFL level.
Scott likens Tsatas’ kicking issue to a golfer’s swing.
“With a lot of skill-based activities, it’s about drilling habits over time. And a lot of players have drilled habits since they … were six and seven years old. And so some of those things are hard to remodel, but Elijah, fundamentally is fine.
“So it’s just refining some of his skill techniques ... which David Rath’s done a terrific job with. And then it’s repetition, repetition.”
Scott acknowledged that confidence can contribute to the issue. “Part of it, yeah, and the challenge with, I like to use an analogy of a golfer. I mean, there have been the world’s best golfers who decide to completely reinvent their swing, and they go backwards before they go forwards.”
Herein lies the nub of the Tsatas project. “Yeah, I think, Elijah went backwards to iron out some deficiencies, and now we’re seeing him go forward.”
In his draft year (2022), Tsatas’ disposal efficiency for the Oakleigh Chargers (under 18s) was over 70 per cent, his kicking an improved 63.0 – and he gained oodles of the ball, an average of nearly 34 disposals per game.
Over three AFL seasons, in a limited sample of 11 games, that kicking efficiency reached just over 55 per cent in 2024 and in one appearance this year. In a practice match against the Cats, Tsatas showed encouraging signs in the ball-getting department – 16 contested possessions and 10 clearances – but his kicking was still at 53.
Recruiters and coaches I consulted made the important point that inside midfielders, like Tsatas, win more balls under pressure, and will have correspondingly lower kicking efficiency than defenders or outside mids.
One recruitment expert observed that the issue wasn’t Tsatas’ raw percentage – it was his tendency to miss targets “when out in the open.” This weakness, tellingly, has been a focus for Rath and Tsatas.
Tsatas’ supporters – knowing his background from Wesley College and Oakleigh – note that there are superstars, such as Patrick Dangerfield and Nathan Fyfe, who’ve had less-than-precise kicking. But typically, those players own outlandish strengths – and compensate by taking yardage and winning contests with a high degree of difficulty.
Tsatas’ mix of handballs to kicks – he had more of the former than the latter in 12 VFL games and seven AFL games last year – suggests that the remodelling might involve a higher proportion of his more secure hand skills.
Elijah Tsatas and Ben Hobbs are two of Essendon’s midfield first-rounders.Credit: AFL Photos
Tsatas, who has retained his spot in Essendon’s 23 for Saturday’s fascinating assignment against the Crows, also is a touchstone for what Scott has described as a cultural shift for a playing group that had terrible standards when the coach arrived.
As reported by this masthead, Scott saw the reaction to Tsatas’ hard toil as a measure of the change. “The work that Elijah Tsatas puts into his program, over and above what is baseline standard for an AFL player – that is now celebrated, not ridiculed,” he said, in a comment that drew some gasps in clubland.
Scott added: “I think there is a correlation between players who work unbelievably hard and success in my experience in football. There aren’t many surprises.
“The best players are also the hardest workers. Elijah is as hard a worker as any of our players on our list.” As hard as Zach Merrett? “Yeah, and, and he’s got the captain’s backing because Zach can see how much work Elijah puts in.
“I hold that in really high regard, the fact that our leaders really rate young players in terms of the work they do because they see more of it than I do, and they see what goes on in the locker room. They see what goes on behind the scenes.
“And so, if the correlation between hard work and success is there, then we think Elijah’s on the right path. I think he’s had, he’s had clearly the best preparation in the preseason since I’ve been at the club, and David Rath’s done a power of work with him.”
Tsatas might be on the path to becoming a first-possession midfielder of note. Or he might fall short of the often-harsh expectations that accompany high draft picks.
If a few rival recruiters wondered whether he would embrace feedback on his defects, the Bombers say that concern has been dispelled.
He was picked at the tail-end of a vexed period for Essendon in the national draft, following on the heels of three top ten selections of 2020 – Nik Cox, Archie Perkins and Zach Reid – and 2021 first-rounder Ben Hobbs. The 2020 trio have not progressed as hoped yet, Cox and Reid having been often grounded with injury. Cox’s best position remains unresolved, as Scott acknowledged, and like Reid, the 200-centimetre utility needs continuity.
The pandemic-wracked 2020 draft was problematic for all clubs. Essendon, with three early picks, were swimming in the worst possible pool.
Having invested heavily in Elijah Tsatas, Essendon know the only path forward is to keep working on the Tsatas project, without forgetting that a player only succeeds because of his strengths.
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