Roast Essendon in no mans land

[LFTWNG11]

If only the umps would give them a 7 goal break like they deserve, they might be a bit better.

 

[Ambrosia]

Brads the right coach imo. I'm just not sure they have the list.

Durham
Langford
Merrett
Mckay
Mcgrath
Redman
Caldwell

Thats the core I'd be building around. Martin is a talent but imo a bit of a figjam, certainly not in the trade him category but I don't see him as one of those personalities you can build a culture around. Draper's a complete idiot on and off the field, if they had other options I'd palm him off to someone else but they only really have Goldy.

Reid
Cox
Perkins
Jones
Tsatas
Hobbs

Pretty grim stuff from a drafting perspective. They'd be desperately hoping some of them kick on to become stars. Durham looks to basically be the player they hoped Tsatas would be but his kicking is rubbish.

Still a lot of work to do but they're slowly chipping away at it.

Not sure how Martin is a figjam?

Ridley would also clearly be added to the list.

But agree it’s top end talent that is the issue. Player vs player the side just doesn’t stack up against the best.

The positives this year as an Essendon fan is that now feels like the main issue. In previous years we weren’t even successfully implementing a system/game plan week to week to even give what talent we had a chance.

 

[Red Bull]

Not sure how Martin is a figjam?

Ridley would also clearly be added to the list.

But agree it’s top end talent that is the issue. Player vs player the side just doesn’t stack up against the best.

The positives this year as an Essendon fan is that now feels like the main issue. In previous years we weren’t even successfully implementing a system/game plan week to week to even give what talent we had a chance.

Agree that elite talent cures most problems but of course, it doesn’t grow on trees.
But of equal concern is the team’s culture of giving up when things get hard.
No doubt Scott understands this issue as a major problem as we’ve seen in his attempts to promote the “essendon edge” nonsense.
Scott would now know who needs to be weeded out (starting with Kevin & Adrian) and replaced but it takes time to do properly which is something the coteries and their beholden board members aren’t noted for and leads to the annual sugar hits in trade week every year that never really address the fundamental issues.
Scott, given the time and license could probably get the job done.
Time will tell if the efc are finally ready for that …

 

[Engimal v3]

They don't have the cattle.

 

[HirdsTheWord]

Wright is an a grader. Essendons strength is their midfield, I'd be trading parish and a first for Max King at the end of the year, suddenly they are a top 4 lock for 2025. Hobbs, perkins will be stars. Jones is also gone well ahead of cox, who I'd also look at trading. Maybe cox and parish for King and keep your first rounder

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

 

[Red Bull]

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

He’d probably fumble it …

Seriously though, does that address the fundamental issues the dons have or is it just another sugar hit …

 

[Vindicater]

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

Why?

We already have a tall soft player in Wright

 

[HirdsTheWord]

He’d probably fumble it …

Seriously though, does that address the fundamental issues the dons have or is it just another sugar hit …

No one thing will fix ours or any other teams' issues, but our fwdline is a complete ****in disaster.

I see it as fundamental issue atm. By no means the only one.

 

[RAPPA]

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

You’d want to ensure King eradicates the conditional footy from his game, otherwise you're getting another Wright

 

[LukeParkerno1]

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

Surely you need mids and not another forward with questionable kicking ability. End of the day this comes back to Dodoro and his constant non drafting of midfielders, why did it take till the last few years to do it?

 

[HirdsTheWord]

Surely you need mids and not another forward with questionable kicking ability. End of the day this comes back to Dodoro and his constant non drafting of midfielders, why did it take till the last few years to do it?

Our midfield is fine IMO.

Our fwdline is not.

 

[Red Bull]

No one thing will fix ours or any other teams' issues, but our fwdline is a complete ****in disaster.

I see it as fundamental issue atm. By no means the only one.

First Stringer
Then Wright
Then Weideman
Now King ?

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Our midfield is fine IMO.

Our fwdline is not.

Your midfield is fine? Could have fooled me, Merett and Durham are stars, but it falls away drastically after that. Teams and contending ones especially bat 8-10 deep in there. A great midfield can make an average forwardline look good have you seen our forwardline?

 

[HirdsTheWord]

First Stringer
Then Wright
Then Weideman
Now King ?

We got stringer in to play with Daniher + Fantasia. Both of the latter were injury plagued with us.

Wright and Weideman are on next to nothing contract wise.

 

[HirdsTheWord]

Your midfield is fine? Could have fooled me, Merett and Durham are stars, but it falls away drastically after that. Teams and contending ones especially bat 8-10 deep in there. A great midfield can make an average forwardline look good have you seen our forwardline?

Silly comment.

I didn't say it was the best in the league, but the midfield is not our glaring issue.

Take Geelong game for example.

We won clearances, and we also won the inside 50's. Our issue was that Geelong had 45% Fwd. 50 Efficiency We had 30%. We are winning the ball and getting into our 50, the issue is our rubbish fwdline gets the thing straight back out without scoring and then we are getting scored on turnover.

TLDR our midfield needs work, but our fwdline needs more. Max King and a good small fwd with be heaven send for us IMO.

 

[eth-dog]

Silly comment.

I didn't say it was the best in the league, but the midfield is not our glaring issue.

Take Geelong game for example.

We won clearances, and we also won the inside 50's. Our issue was that Geelong had 45% Fwd. 50 Efficiency We had 30%. We are winning the ball and getting into our 50, the issue is our rubbish fwdline gets the thing straight back out without scoring and then we are getting scored on turnover.

TLDR our midfield needs work, but our fwdline needs more. Max King and a good small fwd with be heaven send for us IMO.

Huh? They had 28.6%, we had 15%

 

[HirdsTheWord]

Huh? They had 28.6%, we had 15%

?

 

[FlyHigh18]

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Silly comment.

I didn't say it was the best in the league, but the midfield is not our glaring issue.

Take Geelong game for example.

We won clearances, and we also won the inside 50's. Our issue was that Geelong had 45% Fwd. 50 Efficiency We had 30%. We are winning the ball and getting into our 50, the issue is our rubbish fwdline gets the thing straight back out without scoring and then we are getting scored on turnover.

TLDR our midfield needs work, but our fwdline needs more. Max King and a good small fwd with be heaven send for us IMO.

Your issue wasn't the forwardline, it was kicking it to advantage of the forwards or lack of, how many kicks went to the advantage of the Cats defenders? That isn't the forwards fault that's where the kicks are coming from. Merrett and Durham can't do everything there, and even Durham as good as he is you wouldn't call him elite by foot not saying he isn't a gun he is. Essendon's need class in the middle, what you'd give for a Josh Kelly type on the outside. Jones looks promising up tehre anyway Striger is an AA player, there's enough quality there. You probably lack a small forward or two to keep the ball in but I'd be going for mids, fix the middle the other parts will fall into place.

 

[HirdsTheWord]

Your issue wasn't the forwardline, it was kicking it to advantage of the forwards or lack of, how many kicks went to the advantage of the Cats defenders? That isn't the forwards fault that's where the kicks are coming from. Merrett and Durham can't do everything there, and even Durham as good as he is you wouldn't call him elite by foot not saying he isn't a gun he is. Essendon's need class in the middle, what you'd give for a Josh Kelly type on the outside. Jones looks promising up tehre anyway Striger is an AA player, there's enough quality there. You probably lack a small forward or two to keep the ball in but I'd be going for mids, fix the middle the other parts will fall into place.

I dont think so, but is what it is.

We have consistently shown a lack of scoring all year, whilst showing good dominance in the midfield. There has been numerous games this year where we are absolutely dominating the game but simply cannot put it on the board.

At a certain point you need to look at the fwd line.

 

[Red Bull]

We got stringer in to play with Daniher + Fantasia. Both of the latter were injury plagued with us.

Wright and Weideman are on next to nothing contract wise.

And next to nothing is what they deliver when it matters.

They are filling 2 list spots.
List spots that could have been filled with the 2 x top 10 draft picks offered for Daniher who had made it clear he didn’t want to play for the club ….

 

[LukeParkerno1]

I dont think so, but is what it is.

We have consistently shown a lack of scoring all year, whilst showing good dominance in the midfield. There has been numerous games this year where we are absolutely dominating the game but simply cannot put it on the board.

At a certain point you need to look at the fwd line.

They go hand in hand but cost relative, King would command at least two firsts (that's a best case). Could you not just get a really good mid for one of those selections? Probably. Still feel you back Jones to be a very good key, he's just young, we said the same thing about Amartey last year and before, keys take time, you are 2-3 years to contend, take the long route and you'll sustain success don't look at a short cut.

Personally though it's the poor delivery more, fix that and put the ball in front of a forward and not to the advantage of the defender

 

[eth-dog]

?

View attachment 2036635

We scored 9 goals from 60 inside 50's (15%). They scored 16 from 56 (28.6%). Even if you expanded that to scores they scored 41.1% of their I50 to our 23.3%

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

The sad thing is we didn't even expect Durham to be what he is now. We got him in Pick 9 in a mid season daft.....

the rest though....

Reid - Pick 10
Cox - Pick 8
Perkins - Pick 9
Jones - Pick 30
Tsatas - Pick 5
Hobbs - Pick 13

Alot of them are young granted. But we would have hoped for a lot more than what we got thus far with those picks. Alot of these guys are now in their 4th or more season........

Apart from Hobbs the rest of the group dont have any kent in them

That's the problem with our drafting we don't draft enough Sam Durham types blokes who would bust a gut up and back

 

[fusion]

id be throwing the kitchen sink at max king.

Might be best for both Essendon and King. I think he needs a fresh start, and maybe outside of a Ross Lyon system. St Kilda might get the early picks to help rebuild their list.

Lloyd as his junior coach is planting a seed too; I suspect to see if there's any interest in him leaving.