Garry Lyon: Examining Zach Merrett’s Essendon, football legacy compared to Joe Daniher

Zach Merrett is going to be remembered as one of Essendon’s greatest players of the modern era. But as Garry Lyon writes, it would be “entirely reasonable” if he wanted to finish his AFL career elsewhere.

Whose career would you rather have — Zach Merrett or Joe Daniher? Have a think about that and we’ll get back to it.

Zach Merrett has won five Crichton Medals – awarded to the Essendon best and fairest.

And perhaps even more impressive, since 2015 he has finished outside the top four in voting only once.

It is an extraordinary performance from the 29 year old skipper.

It speaks to his remarkable consistency, his durability, his professionalism, his preparation, recovery and his mental and physical toughness.

It also puts him in the company of the most revered Essendon players of all time.

Only Dick Reynolds and Bill Hutchison top his achievements (each with seven Crichton Medals) and Merrett shares the honour of five with James Hird.

That is Bomber royalty and the gun midfielder has earned the right to have his name alongside these greats.

Merrett has a 44 per cent win-loss record at the Bombers and has never won a final.

However, the one glaring omission from Merrett’s CV is the one that sets the other three apart.

Reynolds and Hutchison each played in 28 finals and won four premierships.

Hird played in 20 finals and won two flags.

Merrett has played in four elimination finals and lost them all.

This is not to embarrass or disparage Merrett in any way, shape or form.

It would be hard to find anyone that has done more to try and lift his club from mediocrity in recent times than what Merrett has.

But, in a game that requires 23 combatants to make up a team, no one player can be the difference between sustained success or failure.

Fate, luck, circumstance … there are many and varied factors that determine where a young player finds himself embarking on his AFL journey.

Zach Merrett's boundary line goal against St Kilda

They have no say in it, of course. Players nominate for a National Draft and then place their football future in the hands of those whose job it is to assess talent and predict (or pray) for future greatness.

Merrett went at pick 26 in the 2013 National Draft.

If it was redrafted today, knowing what we now know, only Bontempelli and Cripps would go before him – and some might argue the toss with Cripps ahead of Merrett.

But Merrett goes to the Bombers and here he is – 12 years down the track – with one of the finest individual records in the game but with just four finals to his name.

Had Richmond selected him with their pick 12, which they used on Ben Lennon, then we would conceivably be sitting here today talking about a three time premiership player.

All wonderful hypotheticals that we occasionally amuse ourselves with – what if’s, redrafts and the glorious insights hindsight allows for.

But the reality for Merrett is the clock is ticking.

And while he should be justifiably proud of how he has performed as an AFL footballer, what he so desperately craves is to experience what Reynolds, Hutchison and Hird did on a regular basis.

To compete on the biggest and most important stage of all, where the ultimate accolade is decided.

That means playing finals football and even more important – winning finals.

Merrett has emerged as one of the game’s superstars but has little team success to show for it. Picture: Michael Klein

That last element, something that has been gleefully documented and recounted by rival supporters, hasn’t happened at Essendon since 2004.

For one of the biggest clubs in the competition who, along with Collingwood and Carlton, have won the most premierships in the game, not having won a final for the best part of 21 years is unpalatable at best and humiliating at worst.

The messaging from the club under Brad Scott is that they are determined to get this latest push to September right.

That they don’t want to make fleeting appearances with no impact, but rather the next time they appear in a final they are there to stay.

Merrett has often been a lone soldier for the Bombers. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

The Bombers skipper on the burst. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

That they will go to the draft and build a list capable of delivering to Essendon fans what they haven’t had for decades.

And that is a team that not only makes it to September but a team capable of winning in September.

It is a commendable, if not an entirely earth shattering, premise from the Bombers.

For Merrett, it can’t come quick enough. And as he leads his charges out for Dreamtime at the ‘G I can’t help but wonder what is going through his mind.

It would be entirely reasonable if he was to contemplate life elsewhere.

I don’t imagine there would be too many footballers that have never wondered what the grass is like on the other side.

Some stay while others explore and find that success they desire or discover that the grass isn’t always greener.

In a professional football landscape where the movement of players has become a more accepted as part of the business, the motivation for that change becomes instructional.

Money and security is an undeniable carrot, a simple change of environment is acknowledged and more opportunity is justifiable.

Moving for greater team success and the chance to experience a premiership is not as prevalent as one would think.

I doubt whether there would be too many football fans that would begrudge Merrett the right to explore his options to play finals consistently and eventually a grand final.

After all, shouldn’t that be the stated aim of every player?

Which brings us to the beginning of this article. The messaging around Joe Daniher wanting to leave Essendon was a perceived frustration over the inability of the Bombers and Daniher to get his body right.

And while there would be some truth in that, having played just 15 games in the three years leading up to his move, the fact that he then had seasons where he played 24 games, 19, 26 and 27 suggests the Lions conditioning teams are geniuses (which they may well be) or maybe Joe just needed to get out of an environment that was barely settled and changed coaches with an unhealthy regularity.

Zach Merrett Mic'd Up pic.twitter.com/CvpvR6GRML

— The Caddy Shack (@CharlieDons) June 13, 2023

It would be no surprise to learn that Daniher and Merrett discussed the plight of their club regularly and that Daniher might have encouraged his good mate to explore his options given the unsettled environment at Bomberland.

For Daniher, the move proved to be a massive success.

Four years on he has retired a blissfully contented man, with an enormously enhanced reputation.

He will be remembered not as a flighty but largely unfulfilled talent at Essendon but rather as one of the very best big game players of the modern era, whose finals performances delivered him a premiership medal and almost a Norm Smith.

Thankfully for the Bomber faithful, who may not be so understanding if he was to leave, Merrett has constantly and selflessly pushed himself to the limit in the quest for his dream of finals success to take place right where he is.

And for that, they should be very thankful.

The question is, will the improvement needed come in time for him to live out that dream?

That is why the decisions made around coaches, presidents, recruiting and trading are so critically important.

If Essendon is to tinker around the edges without any real vision for their next successful tilt at a finals campaign, then Merrett will be the tragic casualty.

One of their modern day greats, whose individual record stacks up with the very best of all time, will be left wondering whether he could get it done where history judges you most harshly but rewards you most handsomely.

He has committed to this football club and now hopes the investment the club has made in the future reaps swift dividends.

Joe Daniher left the Bombers and won a premiership with Brisbane. Picture: David Caird

Daniher and Merrett at an Essendon training session.

Things can change very quickly, if the right decisions are made.

Hawthorn has shown with astute list management decisions and intuitive instruction, success can be fast tracked.

Zach Reid is the Bombers’ best example.

In a short space of time he has vindicated the faith the Bombers showed in him and turned a solid back six into one that can handle most opposition set ups.

Can Nate Caddy and Isaac Kako defy time and come on more quickly than their birth certificates would otherwise dictate? There is a definite chance.

Can Perkins, Caldwell, Parish, Tsatas, Hobbs, Shiel, Duursma and Roberts join Durham and Merrett and provide the sort of midfield depth needed in the modern game? Of that, I’m not so certain.

Who or what is Peter Wright? A key forward presence who kicks the ball beautifully and someone you can build around or a flaky ‘once a month’ tease that you’re not sure what you are going to get from?

Daniher and Merrett looked set to be the nucleus of Essendon’s next finals side.

For Merrett, he seems convinced that the Bombers are on the right path.

His conviction and belief is commendable, his willingness to sacrifice and lead this group his most ostentatious show of faith.

I desperately hope it is well placed, for the sake of him having the rounded career he deserves.

When you have done and continue to do all that you can to live your dream, by virtue of the fact that you have chosen a team sport over individual, what transpires is largely out of your hands.

It is time for the rest of this Essendon group to get on board and row their side of the boat.

For if there is only one man pulling desperately on one oar and the rest are not, the boat will just go around and around in circles.

And after 21 years, all you get is dizzy.

Whose career would you rather have, Merrett’s or Daniher’s?

Joe’s wins nearly every time. Zach loses nothing in the comparison. But he deserves more. Can this football club give him that opportunity?