Analysis i've got a high tolerance for essendon being s**t, but this game was appalling

[faible]

we havent recovered, thats the sad part.

Blowing the club up isn't a quick fix. Carlton and Melbourne both put themselves in deep, dark holes that took a long time to get back out of.

We've made a lot of short-sighted decisions along the way that have just dragged it out. Supporters kicking and screaming for finals wins because it's been x years since the last don't help matters.

 

[BomberManU]

Blowing the club up isn't a quick fix. Carlton and Melbourne both put themselves in deep, dark holes that took a long time to get back out of.

We've made a lot of short-sighted decisions along the way that have just dragged it out. Supporters kicking and screaming for finals wins because it's been x years since the last don't help matters.

Question is, are we still in the hole or slowly crawling out of it? Or, unthinkably, still falling?

 

[Old Campaigner]

Question is, are we still in the hole or slowly crawling out of it? Or, unthinkably, still falling?

In footy you only really see the impact of decisions years after they were made due to the time it takes to draft a cohort of players and develop them, so ask again in 8 years.

Actually we’d probably have somewhat of an idea in a couple of years as we should see incremental improvements over that time if the right changes are being made.

 

[faible]

Question is, are we still in the hole or slowly crawling out of it? Or, unthinkably, still falling?

I think Rutten identified a lot of the issues that needed fixing, but wasn't able to sell the club on actually buckling down long-term and fixing them.

Scott comes in with more history and experience to buy him more time, and is largely saying the same things Rutten has said, and looking for the same kinds of players that Rutten was looking for.

The club, and supporters, need to accept that it isn't a quick fix. You don't change a coach and it magically resolves itself overnight. We haven't got a culture of a Geelong or Sydney to integrate new players in to, we haven't had years of dour coaching like Buckley at Collingwood or Bolton at Carlton where players have a reasonable grounding in two-way running. We're having to simultaneously turn over the list, change the mindset of the players, and change the culture of the whole club all at once, whilst also having to fight the supporters, media and coteries that all love to shout HAVEN'T WON A FINAL IN 20 YEARS as though it's the fault of the current administration, or something useful.

Yes, we've had a shitty two decades with a number of shitty decisions. No, screaming at Scott about it isn't going to make it happen any quicker. We know we can release the handbrake and play front-running football and probably rack up a few wins then get blown away in finals, or if we're lucky, maybe even win a single final, but that isn't a long-term fix.

 

[BomberManU]

I think Rutten identified a lot of the issues that needed fixing, but wasn't able to sell the club on actually buckling down long-term and fixing them.

Scott comes in with more history and experience to buy him more time, and is largely saying the same things Rutten has said, and looking for the same kinds of players that Rutten was looking for.

The club, and supporters, need to accept that it isn't a quick fix. You don't change a coach and it magically resolves itself overnight. We haven't got a culture of a Geelong or Sydney to integrate new players in to, we haven't had years of dour coaching like Buckley at Collingwood or Bolton at Carlton where players have a reasonable grounding in two-way running. We're having to simultaneously turn over the list, change the mindset of the players, and change the culture of the whole club all at once, whilst also having to fight the supporters, media and coteries that all love to shout HAVEN'T WON A FINAL IN 20 YEARS as though it's the fault of the current administration, or something useful.

Yes, we've had a shitty two decades with a number of shitty decisions. No, screaming at Scott about it isn't going to make it happen any quicker. We know we can release the handbrake and play front-running football and probably rack up a few wins then get blown away in finals, or if we're lucky, maybe even win a single final, but that isn't a long-term fix.

It is a bit bewildering to me that 'two way running' (by that I mean a lot of different, usually un-glamorous things) can't be implemented into a group of players. Sure, it might take a bit longer with some, but I still find it strange. Especially when the benefits are on display, week in week out.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Getting a lot of recruits like McKay, Goldstein, Gresham and Duursma fulfils a need and costs us nothing but it feels like it keeps us in the mediocre zone ..a little higher than we’ve been. But is that a good thing? It means higher pos but we reallly need higher picks.

The Smith/Shiel/Stringer/Saad gets were the same although there we thought we’d be building around players Daniher and Fantasia before injuries stopped that. Of course that cost us a lot of decent top picks.

McGrath looking like a decent player but a little unlucky there in that it wasn’t a draft with a Rowell, Reid, Horne-Francis.

Three picks in top 10 in a year when kids missed a year of football.

Rule change in ‘06 where they stopped high priority picks and we could’ve had Selwood. Hawks and Pies a year or two before benefitted for over a decade for them.

ah gees …

 

[faible]

It is a bit bewildering to me that 'two way running' (by that I mean a lot of different, usually un-glamorous things) can't be implemented into a group of players. Sure, it might take a bit longer with some, but I still find it strange. Especially when the benefits are on display, week in week out.

It's a little more complex IMO; you've got a coaching structure (zone defence) that requires all the players to be in all the right spots at all the right times, along with actually physically running hard for little or no reward just to apply some pressure. We've seen EFC sides that will apply direct tackle pressure a few times like in Rutten's first year, but that struggle at implementing the zone defence and doing all the unrewarded running it requires.

You can have players that are willing to work hard and chase but that can't really grasp the structural requirements (Tippungwuti is a good example) or you can have players that grasp it but are just too lazy to actually do it at full effort, or exist somewhere between the two. Being lazy and not understanding it probably means they're not on an AFL list.

I suspect a lot of our players are in the middle of that spectrum; they kinda-sorta grasp it, but also aren't naturally guys who run hard both ways when it won't be rewarded, which is why guys like Kelly and Guelfi stand out because they will do the boring grunt work.

How many of our players would run 50m or more, chasing after an opponent that they know they won't catch, just for the chance they'll apply some pressure? Zach has turned himself in to that kind of guy.

It's not just an Essendon thing either, heaps of players have gone through their junior careers being the best player on every team they've played on, and have never really had to work 100% as hard defensively as they have offensively. So you're having to try to train it in to them. Once you've got in embedded in the culture like a Sydney have, it seems to 'stick' as the new generations come through. We've never actually made it requirement for any kind of extended period of time.

 

[faible]

Getting a lot of recruits like McKay, Goldstein, Gresham and Duursma fulfils a need and costs us nothing but it feels like it keeps us in the mediocre zone ..a little higher than we’ve been. But is that a good thing? It means higher pos but we reallly need higher picks.

The Smith/Shiel/Stringer/Saad gets were the same although there we thought we’d be building around players Daniher and Fantasia before injuries stopped that. Of course that cost us a lot of decent top picks.

McGrath looking like a decent player but a little unlucky there in that it wasn’t a draft with a Rowell, Reid, Horne-Francis.

Three picks in top 10 in a year when kids missed a year of football.

Rule change in ‘06 where they stopped high priority picks and we could’ve had Selwood. Hawks and Pies a year or two before benefitted for over a decade for them.

ah gees …

Melbourne very lucky St Kilda didn't take Petracca.

 

[Snake Charmer]

I’m a proud Cronulla sharks fan and find my self switching the channel to the nrl a lot more this season… I didn’t like league 5-6 years ago.. what’s happened?

 

[windyhill]

Is there a bigger load of shit than “the edge” ? Just another thing to sling at the supporters.

 

[fairbump_playon]

Is there a bigger load of s**t than “the edge” ? Just another thing to sling at the supporters.

Hey don't say that. I only became a member because of this new edge thing. It's actually real... right?

 

[EnolaGay]

Is there a bigger load of s**t than “the edge” ? Just another thing to sling at the supporters.

The Essendon Edge is about as good as Microsoft Edge, i.e. pretty shit

Sent from my SM-A515F using Tapatalk

 

[Beerfish]

Needs more delay pedals.

 

[Here_we_come]

I can't be bothered reading all posts in the thread and so this has likely been said. But it is so abundantly clear that our poor performances are due to list issues. Ours is simply not good enough and there are holes everywhere.

Until we address our recruiting woes, we will be stuck in this purgatory of a few good wins a year but ultimately losing when it matters and finishing somewhere between 7th and 15th.

 

[Mootsy]

Is there a bigger load of s**t than “the edge” ? Just another thing to sling at the supporters.

 

[NAB777]

Melbourne very lucky St Kilda didn't take Petracca.

The reason St Kilda didn't take him was that they didn't like some of his extended family.

 

[Snake Charmer]

The reason St Kilda didn't take him was that they didn't like some of his extended family.

So uncle Greg had a few to many crownies and bowled bouncers at nanna after Christmas lunch and the Aints weren’t happy??

 

[Shanghaistu]

If you combine our woeful depth, dire inability to defend and completely out-of-control soft tissue injury list, I’m getting nervous we could be the 2024 version of 2023 West Coast

 

[fanuch]

Minus the Harley Reid payoff.

 

[eth-dog]

This exactly. 10 goals + losses are an almost guarantee every year for Essendon for 20 years regardless of where we finish on the ladder yet sides like Carlton and Collingwood even in their down years rarely lose above 35 points.

Losing to Port by 69 points is simply unacceptable even factoring in list quality. For our list, the maximum margin should be 40-45 points (I'm being generous) and that should be a rare occurrence. We should be losing by the margins Adelaide have lost by this year and last year. They've only lost above 26 points 3 times (32 points vs Richmond early last year, 35 points vs Fremantle away this year and 45 points vs Bulldogs in Ballarat last year). There's no reason why we should be that much worse in containing losses than Adelaide. The list is not at West Coast and North's level.

I posted the following comparison before:

Carlton have had heaps of 50+ point losses in the past 20 years. What a completely inaccurate statement. Only need to go back 5/6 years to see them lose plenty by 15+ goals.

I'm not excusing the performance on Friday but the whole "Oh Carlton don't get smashed" is bullshit.

 

[JayJ20]

Carlton have had heaps of 50+ point losses in the past 20 years. What a completely inaccurate statement. Only need to go back 5/6 years to see them lose plenty by 15+ goals.

I'm not excusing the performance on Friday but the whole "Oh Carlton don't get smashed" is bullshit.

In the past of course they did, but it eventually stopped a couple of years before they became good as I demonstrated above. 4-5 years of limiting 35 points+ losses is a decent sample size. We haven't stopped losing like that multiple times a year at all. Not even a single season since 2001. Not even shortened quarters in 2020! Every single year there are multiple 50+ point losses. Guaranteed. 2018 was the only season we didn't have multiple 50+ losses and even that the second biggest margin was 49 points which is basically 50.
Every single final played out like that too. Even the only close EF vs North in 2014 was a smashing in the second half. Nth 12.5 77 to Ess 6.2 38.

I remember Melbourne's last smashing by 51 points rd9 2020 vs Port. The president put out a statement voicing his disappointment. They've lost above 28 points once since (38 points vs Fremantle 2022) and nothing even close to 51 points.

We should realistically be like Adelaide who don't lose above margins in the 20s very often but the culture of mediocrity and accepting to give up in the middle of the game is still there. St Kilda who have been pretty mediocre have lost only twice above 50 points in two seasons (52 points vs Adelaide last year and 51 points vs Sydney in 2022). So why the heck do we always lose 10,11,12 goals+ multiple times a year when so many teams can manage to prevent it?

Until that stops and until we make those losses absolutely unacceptable, we won't do anything.

 

[ghostdog]

The reason St Kilda didn't take him was that they didn't like some of his extended family.

They needed to sack or counsel that person. What an error.

 

[ghostdog]

In the past of course they did, but it eventually stopped a couple of years before they became good as I demonstrated above. 4-5 years of limiting 35 points+ losses is a decent sample size. We haven't stopped losing like that multiple times a year at all. Not even a single season since 2001. Not even shortened quarters in 2020! Every single year there are multiple 50+ point losses. Guaranteed. 2018 was the only season we didn't have multiple 50+ losses and even that the second biggest margin was 49 points which is basically 50.
Every single final played out like that too. Even the only close EF vs North in 2014 was a smashing in the second half. Nth 12.5 77 to Ess 6.2 38.

I remember Melbourne's last smashing by 51 points rd9 2020 vs Port. The president put out a statement voicing his disappointment. They've lost above 28 points once since (38 points vs Fremantle 2022) and nothing even close to 51 points.

We should realistically be like Adelaide who don't lose above margins in the 20s very often but the culture of mediocrity and accepting to give up in the middle of the game is still there. St Kilda who have been pretty mediocre have lost only twice above 50 points in two seasons (52 points vs Adelaide last year and 51 points vs Sydney in 2022). So why the heck do we always lose 10,11,12 goals+ multiple times a year when so many teams can manage to prevent it?

Until that stops and until we make those losses absolutely unacceptable, we won't do anything.

I hate it when we give up. That's why I feel deflated. I thought we'd turned a corner after Sydney and St Kilda because we looked like we wanted the contest, but all we did was prove Papley right. We've got some way to go yet before we're fighting it out until the end every week. A bit deflating to find we'd run out of fight by R4 though. That sucks.

At least Duz returns.

 

[Snake Charmer]

The worrying thing for me on Friday night was the fact that we looked cooked coming out after half time. 3.5 games into the season where we are trying to play this rebounding get the ball forward at all costs and move in waves style.

 

[JayJ20]

I hate it when we give up. That's why I feel deflated. I thought we'd turned a corner after Sydney and St Kilda because we looked like we wanted the contest, but all we did was prove Papley right. We've got some way to go yet before we're fighting it out until the end every week. A bit deflating to find we'd run out of fight by R4 though. That sucks.

At least Duz returns.

Exactly. We will not win a final until this culture of giving up stops. It's not like we're North or West Coast level bad. Last week it was literally just giving up. The last couple of goals before HT were entirely avoidable. The wins vs Hawthorn and St Kilda means nothing when you cannot prevent big losses. Even the Sydney game should not have been a 30 point loss in the context of the game, but that should be on the higher end of margins we lose by.

I'd take a 7-16 season with a percentage of 110% over a 12-11 season with a percentage of 91%. Teams who rarely lose that big can call it an off day or an aberration, but for us, we know there's at least another 2 or 3 of those games coming up.