Where really are the Bombers placed as they chase September?
On-field, the Bombers may be teetering but off-field, they’re going from strength to strength. Jon Ralph charts Essendon’s growth and what we can expect in the near future.
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Dan Houston nailed his moment while Andrew Phillips couldn’t seize the day.
Twice Essendon has taken on Port Adelaide this year with the game resting on a player’s boot in the final minute.
Phillips’ shot from 50m to tie the contest fell short and the moment was lost.
Yet Houston’s 60m bomb broke the goal line – and Bomber hearts – over a pack of despairing defenders in one of the year’s most dramatic images.
For a modicum of luck an Essendon side with a 9-9 win-loss record could already have half a foot in September with those two extra wins.
The naysayers and frustrated Dons keen to break a 19-year finals drought will have an easy comeback.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
Essendon might have beaten Melbourne, taken it up to Brisbane early at the Gabba and held a 28-point Anzac Day lead over Collingwood, but they still only have only two scalps of top-eight sides.
Those sliding doors moments encapsulate a season of huge internal growth that still has Essendon teetering after four losses in the past five weeks with a team that might have hit the wall.
It is why Essendon needs to bank wins over West Coast and North Melbourne and take one more scalp – either GWS or Sydney – to frank that development with a rare finals berth.
So where is Essendon placed as it attempts to hit the line hard — off the field, with its on field growth and with the out-of-contract players it still needs to re-sign.
THE OFF-FIELD PROGRESS
Round 23 will mark a full 12 months since media executive David Barham took over as Essendon president under a mountain of scrutiny that would only intensify with the botched hiring of new CEO Andrew Thorburn.
It was an inauspicious and costly start, and you could spend an eternity wondering about how different this club would be if James Hird had won the coaching job over Brad Scott.
But in the months since October Essendon has done exactly what it said it would.
New CEO Craig Vozzo, the former West Coast recruiter and footy boss, has been a vastly different chief executive to successor Xavier Campbell.
Insiders talk of an extremely strong character who dodges publicity, a relentless hard worker who has footy smarts through the roof.
He has skilfully handled any existing tension between recruiter Adrian Dodoro and football boss Josh Mahoney.
When he talks football or list management with those officials they trust he knows his stuff.
He has literally filled those roles before so it has helped the football department run smoothly.
Resident rabble rouser Kevin Sheedy made his feelings about wanting Hird known publicly, but has since backed in Scott and by all reports been a highly-functioning board member.
Scott has immediately prioritised lifting standards through training and prioritised development with six development staff, up from two and a half.
No one wants to dance on Ben Rutten’s grave, but players turn up on time and have thrived on a more disciplined training regime.
Scott isn’t the player’s friend in the Craig McRae mould. He is a strong authoritative figure who commands respect and admiration.
A new sheriff in town, as he was described yesterday.
“There is a much greater level of maturity at the club,” one staffer remarked this week.
“The addition of two really experienced leaders (in Vozzo and Scott) has made a massive difference.”
The board has so far delivered on its promise – get an experienced coach, get an experienced senior CEO, re-engage with its Indigenous heritage in meaningful ways including appointing Dean Rioli to the board.
The next challenge in coming years will be to move away from the poker machine revenue so integral to the bottom line.
But the theme has been this: no quick fixes, no sugar hits.
Colleague Mark Robinson made the entirely sensible suggestion that the Dons should chase Oscar Allen with a $1 million offer this week.
Essendon’s opinion this week was that it was plotting the exact opposite course through the draft after so many false dawns throwing cash at Dylan Shiel, Jake Stringer and co.
THE ON-FIELD RESULTS
Essendon has hit a wall, and only Brad Scott and his football department know if they can turn it around.
After Scott’s midfield was obliterated by the Western Bulldogs after quarter time on Friday night, Scott confessed the balance might be out of whack.
He has devoted an entire year of skill acquisition and development in the training program this week, but off two six-day breaks while still training hard the Dons looked cooked.
Ben Hobbs had 12 possessions, Jye Caldwell 12 and Archie Perkins eight possessions looking like boys against the Dogs men in Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore.
The defence lacked dare and decisiveness, with Scott aware the heavy training loads had caught up with his players.
The greatest advertisement for Scott’s program is that comparing Champion Data rankings from 2022 to 2023 a vast number of players have improved.
Will Setterfield is up 93 per cent based on AFL Player Ratings year on year, Nic Martin 64 per cent, Ben Hobbs 55 per cent, Jake Kelly 45 per cent, Jayden Laverde 32 per cent, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher 28 per cent, Jordan Ridley 13 per cent and Mason Redman 12 per cent.
But break down the 2023 season from rounds 1-13 to rounds 14-19 and the Dons have fallen off a cliff.
Essendon has not been able to stop rival sides transitioning the ball all year but was so efficient with the ball in hand, it papered over the cracks.
In the past five weeks their kick rating has gone from the best in the competition to ninth, midfield turnovers from sixth to 16th and their scores inside 50 are 11th, down from third.
As part of that slump comparing rounds 1-13 to rounds 14-19, eleven players have recorded double-figure slumps in their AFL player ratings including Jake Stringer (minus 63 per cent), Archie Perkins (minus 45 per cent), Will Snelling (minus 38 per cent), Sam Weideman (minus 33 per cent), Jake Kelly (minus 33 per cent), Sam Durham (minus 22 per cent), and Jye Caldwell (minus 21 per cent).
Stringer looks lame so if he cannot give 100 per cent he might as well get his injury right following the same policy that has seen Sam Draper (hip-groin) and Dylan Shiel (foot) sidelined.
If Scott preaches standards and a no-risk policy he cannot play Stringer, who has never been lithe but now looks genuinely out of shape.
The draw ahead is excellent – Sydney (Marvel), West Coast (Marvel), North Melbourne (Marvel) GWS (Giants Stadium) and Collingwood (MCG).
As football boss Mahoney said post-match against the Dogs it will be invaluable for Hobbs, Perkins and Caldwell to get great midfield time in 2023 but Bontempelli and Liberatore “certainly taught us a lesson and their class shone through in that area”.
But Stringer has only four goals in the past six weeks, Sam Weideman was goalless for seven weeks, and the forward line is more predictable.
In the first 12 weeks Essendon kicked to the brilliant Kyle Langford inside 50 a total of 50 times then Weideman (50), Jye Menzie (27) and Stringer (27).
From round 13 onwards it is Peter Wright (37 times), well ahead of Stringer, Langford and Weideman (all 13 inside-50 targets) and Essendon’s opposition knows it.
THE LIST
For all the vast improvement at Essendon there are key position list holes and high draft picks who might or might not live up to their potential.
No. 5 draft pick Elijah Tsatas is close to a debut after brilliant VFL form but given Essendon’s surfeit of inside mids might have to develop more versatility in the senior side.
Ben Hobbs’ best games have hinted at a future A-grader, Nic Martin and Sam Durham have taken a huge step forward, and Kyle Langford is Essendon’s most improved player.
But Essendon is yet to answer huge questions at full back and full forward – two of football’s most critical positions.
It hoped to find out more about Harrison Jones (196cm) and Zach Reid (202cm) – one as its full back and one as Wright’s foil.
They have played five games between them so they are no closer to knowing if they need to pay up for a key forward or key back.
So is Essendon content with a Wright-Langford-Stringer forward line and does it have any options anyway given there are so few key talls on the open market?
Zerk-Thatcher has held up exceptionally well but given up bags of six and five goals to Tom Hawkins.
Oscar Allen and Ugle-Hagan have kicked three on him but apart from that he has kept the likes of Charlie Dixon, Joe Daniher, Nick Larkey and Jye Amiss to two goal hauls.
So once more, Essendon has decisions.
Is North Melbourne’s Ben McKay even an upgrade on Zerk-Thatcher if Ridley, Mason Redman and Jayden Laverde provide cover?
Geelong’s Esava Ratugolea would be an upgrade as an intercept defender, but the 25-year-old Cat isn’t exactly a pure full back.
It is here that we will get more of an idea of Vozzo’s influence.
He was instrumental in the pitch to Redman and the fair five-year offer to ensure the Dons didn’t lose their star free agent when once they might have low-balled him.
Fellow free agent Darcy Parish will stay despite Geelong’s interest.
Dylan Shiel might at some stage be forced out by the young midfield stars but before his injury issues he was the 22nd-ranked mid in the competition.
Harrison Jones will sign a new one-year deal and hope his injury issues abate.
Zerk-Thatcher has been offered a minimum-chips offer so are the Dons prepared to lose him or will they eventually increase that deal?
And Nick Bryan remains a conundrum as an elite VFL ruckman who could leave for greater opportunities given his determination for regular senior action.
Fair enough after only 10 senior games as a 21-year-old but while he hopes to prove he is more than a tap ruckman he has had only 31 possessions across four games this year.
Only when we get to the trade period will we find out how much of their $2 million plus cap space is Essendon prepared to splash for experienced players.
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Originally published as Where really are the Bombers placed as they chase September?
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