AFL Player # 5: Elijah Tsatas - Played through a broken finger - 24/3

[Nuggs Bunny]

 

[Agronomus]

Parish is actually tough though and will go win a hard ball. This bloke shirks the contest and acts like an outside mid. Needs a few games but I don’t think he’s up to it personally.

Parish tough
He's the sqibbiest squib to ever squib

 

[DERO]

He looked quite reasonable in the two praccy matches. There was clearly a fair bit if improvement. Maybe judgement culd be reserved until we have given him a little bit more time? Not disagreeing that he was average against the hawks tho.

 

[Nicholas61]

It was 2 seconds but the general point stands.

It's another prime midfield player who is poor to average by foot.

I didn't include him because he has other strengths which make him a bit un-Essendon but I'll adopt it.

Edit: shit, sorry. I was thinking about Caldwell because I was thrown off by hank's sarcasm. You're right Shiel cost 2 x first round picks (and we got one of the Caldwell seconds in return).

Forgot about Francis as well. Swans supporters regularly complained about his disposal. So for nearly a decade our first round picks were poor to average kicks. Dodoro just didn't prioritise foot skill with cream picks. No wonder it is like pulling teeth watching our guys bust a gut then seeing the ball turned over and all the extra work that entails.

 

[BrunoV]

Parish tough
He's the sqibbiest squib to ever squib

Got to disagree.

Parish will take a hit. When he doesn't it's because it's counter productive. That's the benefit of the doubt I give him, anyway.

 

[faible]

Forgot about Francis as well. Swans supporters regularly complained about his disposal. So for nearly a decade our first round picks were poor to average kicks. Dodoro just didn't prioritise foot skill with cream picks. No wonder it is like pulling teeth watching our guys bust a gut then seeing the ball turned over and all the extra work that entails.

From memory Francis was quite a good kick when drafted, he's a long way removed from the player he was at U18 level.

 

[Bipolar Bear]

Got to disagree.

Parish will take a hit. When he doesn't it's because it's counter productive. That's the benefit of the doubt I give him, anyway.

Yeah, terrible call. People confuse small with soft. Mostly because of their penis.

 

[jannissary]

i think we need to stick it out with him this season. get some solid, consistent game time into him.

 

[I Remember Bluey]

Yeah, terrible call. People confuse small with soft. Mostly because of their penis.

i think we need to stick it out with him this season. get some solid, consistent game time into him.

I don't think Darcy would appreciate you sticking his penis out

 

[ant555]

i think we need to stick it out with him this season. get some solid, consistent game time into him.

I want to see him play for at least 6 or 7 weeks. If he gets it together all good . Have to give him the chance. You could not pay me to get on his bandwagon but i want to see a reasonable sample size.

 

[rootsy]

I kinda disagree with this. I think that 95+ percent of the stars of the competition (especially non-KPP and rucks) were at least very good players in their first year or at least showing signs of future stardom. I think we probably have the youngest top 50 in the comp we've ever had. If you aren't at least hinting at stardom straight away, probability suggests you won't get there.

I agree with the trend but 95% is heavy. Not everyone develops at the same age and he looks like a late bloomer. He was pretty scrawny at 18 and didn’t seem ready, and playing 2s consistently brings you down a peg in skills/reaction.
That said, I think it’s make or break this year, but I think it’ll take at least 5-10 consistent senior games until any breakout game.

 

[Vander18]

I want to see him play for at least 6 or 7 weeks. If he gets it together all good . Have to give him the chance. You could not pay me to get on his bandwagon but i want to see a reasonable sample size.

I agree. He should get 4-5 more games and then all will have a clear picture of where he’s at and what we are working with.

 

[Petrify]

He's now the same age as Caldwell when we traded Caldwell to Essendon.

It took Caldwell til he was 23 to have a breakout year.

Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell developement wise at this stage. Relax.

 

[andleanback]

This is the part that just turns me off. I do not mind outside players but an inside midfielder simply has to have it in him like Caldwell and Durham do and like Hobbs has although Hobbs is simply a butcher by foot as well. Like you say not only could he not find the footy early , anyone who lined up on him did find the footy. It is why I question using a top end pick on a guy who yes can find the footy on his terms but has a few areas that need serious improvement. I am with you. I have taken on board his injury issues and it was going to take time for him and he may still be a good player but like you say is he the player we really wanted. If he can not break the lines then no he is not.

Yeh it stood out clearly watching him live how many crucial stoppages his opponent one that lead to hawthorn scoring shots. I did see Caldwell get around him a few times and Tsatas clearly knew he’d stuffed up.

 

[andleanback]

He's now the same age as Caldwell when we traded Caldwell to Essendon.

It took Caldwell til he was 23 to have a breakout year.

Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell developement wise at this stage. Relax.

Caldwells always had his attack on the contest though, yes hes had to improve / develop on other parts of his game, but ability to stand up in the contest has always been there. Just like getting 9 touches in the first qtr of a final after not playing all season. Tsatas needs to lift his game desperately in that area if he’s going to have an afl career playing midfield.

 

[Old Campaigner]

Caldwells always had his attack on the contest though, yes hes had to improve / develop on other parts of his game, but ability to stand up in the contest has always been there. Just like getting 9 touches in the first qtr of a final after not playing all season. Tsatas needs to lift his game desperately in that area if he’s going to have an afl career playing midfield.

I’d say if he can’t make a career playing midfield he’s not going to have a career because his kicking is unlikely to be tolerated in any other position

 

[andleanback]

I’d say if he can’t make a career playing midfield he’s not going to have a career because his kicking is unlikely to be tolerated in any other position

Well yeh that’s kinda what I was saying

 

[mike ross]

Forgot about Francis as well. Swans supporters regularly complained about his disposal. So for nearly a decade our first round picks were poor to average kicks. Dodoro just didn't prioritise foot skill with cream picks. No wonder it is like pulling teeth watching our guys bust a gut then seeing the ball turned over and all the extra work that entails.

But they were nice boys growing up from nice families.

 

[P Money]

He's now the same age as Caldwell when we traded Caldwell to Essendon.

It took Caldwell til he was 23 to have a breakout year.

Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell developement wise at this stage. Relax.

Not sure about this. Let's not forget Phil Davis saying he'd give Caldwell a 10 year contract - he played a total of 11 games at GWS. He also managed 14 games in his first 3 years due to soft tissue injuries - Tsatas has played 12 games in 2 years (+ 1 round of 2025). Some of those missed due to injury in his first year but many missed due to not being up to the standard and needing to develop in the VFL.

I'm not writing off Tsatas (though I have my concerns) but I don't think this is a good comparison. Caldwell has shown a lot ever since he has gotten onto the park, with far fewer glaring weaknesses.

 

[TheFrenchCut]

Caldwell has always been a pretty good player. He has improved but what a lot of people perceive as 'improvement' is really just him getting the chance to stay on the ball, rather than play half forward with occasional stints through the middle.

As pointed out above, Tsatas has more issues in his game than Caldwell did. Thought his performance on Friday, while not terrible, was disappointing. Looks like he still has an u/18s mentality.

 

[ant555]

He's now the same age as Caldwell when we traded Caldwell to Essendon.

It took Caldwell til he was 23 to have a breakout year.

Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell developement wise at this stage. Relax.

Do not agree Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell at the same stage. The only issue Caldwell had was getting his body right.

 

[ghostdog]

Parish tough
He's the sqibbiest squib to ever squib

Bryce Gibbs not good enough?

 

[ghostdog]

Forgot about Francis as well. Swans supporters regularly complained about his disposal. So for nearly a decade our first round picks were poor to average kicks. Dodoro just didn't prioritise foot skill with cream picks. No wonder it is like pulling teeth watching our guys bust a gut then seeing the ball turned over and all the extra work that entails.

Didn't he prioritise coffee and cream with a chat over watching for things like foot skills.

 

[JayJ20]

He's now the same age as Caldwell when we traded Caldwell to Essendon.

It took Caldwell til he was 23 to have a breakout year.

Tsatas is ahead of Caldwell developement wise at this stage. Relax.

Caldwell barely played at any level since he was 16 when he came to us due to injury. He also didn't have a fundamental flaw in his game.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

The Tsatas project: The mission to fix the one big snag in Essendon top pick’s game

The young Bomber possesses power, a burst from stoppage and a knack for winning the ball. But there was one major problem.

www.theage.com.au

• Sport
• AFL
• AFL 2025

The Tsatas project: The mission to fix the one big snag in Essendon top pick’s game​

By Jake Niall​

March 21, 2025 — 3.52pm
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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: 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.”

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But three others did see a kink, and downgraded Tsatas accordingly.
Essendon might have chosen Matteas Phillipou before St Kilda, having been linked to him pre-draft. Or they could have picked the gifted (and far from complete) 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’ foot disposal, 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 with Hawthorn alongside Alastair Clarkson 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 these skill techniques, of which David brought some 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.”

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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 a modest, though improved 63.0 - and he gained oodles of the ball, an average of nearly 34 per disposals game.
Over three AFL seasons, in a limited sample size of 11 games, that kicking efficiency reached just over 55 in 2024 and in one appearance this year. In a practice match against the Cats, just after Scott’s comments, Tsatas showed encouraging signs in the ball-getting department – 16 contested possessions, 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 in congestion and 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.”
Tsatas’ supporters – and he has been watched closely at both 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 enormous 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 necessarily 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.

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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.”

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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 footballers who are drafted early.
He was picked at the tail-end of a vexed period for Essendon in the national draft, following on the heels of the 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 to be top-end performers, Cox and especially 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 so heavily in Elijah Tsatas, Essendon’s only path with the midfielder remains to work on the Tsatas project, while remembering that a player only succeeds because of his strengths

 

[gillon]

50% game time just before half time after starting the game with 5 clearances. Brad Scott is not a good gameday coach