The club is selling hope in the form of the new three top-10 draft picks from 2020’s national draft,plus therecruitment of Jye Caldwell,a talented midfielder from the Giants and,to a lesser extent,Peter Wright from Gold Coast.
This haul of potentially elite young talent completed a tempestuous post-season in whichJoe Daniher departed for Brisbane,Orazio Fantasia moved to Port Adelaide and IrishmanConor McKenna returned home and – in the exit that cut deepest,promptinga review of Essendon’s football operations –Adam Saad joined Carlton in a trade.
The upshot of this list transformation is that the Bombers will be fielding teams that are among the youngest and most callow in the competition. On games played,their list ranks second least experienced (56.1 games average) and few pundits (this one included) can see them winning half their games,much less making the eight.
Essendon will be particularly thin – literally so – in the key positions,given Daniher’s exit,Cale Hooker’s limited time left (last year of a five-year deal) and decline,and the final straw ofMichael Hurley’s illness,which will deprive the Dons of their best remaining player in a weakened spine for a while. Talented top-10 picksNik Cox and Zach Reid cannot be expected to hold down key positions this year or in 2022;tall players,as we know,take longer to mature.
As Ben Rutten enters his first season as senior coach,this set of circumstances make it imperative that the Essendon hierarchy levels with the fans about the club’s predicament,lowering expectations to the point that Rutten and thenew football boss Josh Mahoney can begin the task of regeneration without constant critiques and condemnation.
Those fans deserve better,of course. But the Bombers cannot allow Rutten,already deprived of a honeymoon by the messy handover arrangement withJohn Worsfold,to be smashed when it becomes evident that finals are out of bounds and that Essendon will do well to replicate last year’s ladder placement (13th) given the loss of experience.