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

[outersanctum]

We're in build 2 since our last premiership. Up until 2006 we kept trying to top up and stay relevant. Once Knights was appointed that changed. We built around the likes of Jobe, Ryder, Gumbleton, Hurley and Hooker, then added Daniher and that was our big push in the early 2010's whilst topping up with Goddard, Cooney and Chappy. Unfortunately the drug saga was also at the time and that derailed that.

Our core into 2017-2020 was slightly different but it was clear we were still working towards winning a flag with it. For various reasons that failed.

Then Saad, Daniher and Fantasia left and we embraced the rebuild for the most part by maintaining first round draft picks whilst getting former first round talents at a fraction of the price with the likes of Wright (F4), Caldwell (Fantasia and a F2), Duursma (BZT and F4), Goldstein (FA), Gresham (FA), McKay (FA), Setterfield (late pick swap) and Weid (Francis and a late pick swap for points) whilst also getting role players cheaply like Hind (4th) and Kelly (FA). All this whilst taking Cox, Perkins, Reid, Hobbs, Tsatas and Caddy early in the draft.

I get that some haven't worked out (Weid) and the jury is still out on pretty much all the kids but it's clear that we're building around the draft.

Port are irrelevant because they've maintained the same core for so long. And honestly not sure they're a great comparison. Their past decade they haven't looked close to winning the flag.

The Shiel trade hasn't worked out but also irrelevant to this build. We brought him in to be the key to fix the midfield puzzle and within 24 months of him joining, the guy we built around was injured for most of it then left, same with 2/3 of our excellent half back line, with the third basically out of commission for the rest of it in Hurley and we were forced to rebuild.

In 2018 they fleeced North for a first round pick for Polec and Pittard, upgraded it with Freo and then fleeced Hawthorne for a cooked and divisive Wingard. They let three player who weren't critical to their build go and brought in some top line talent. They didn't rebuild from 2018, they still had a core of Wines, Dixon, Ryder, Jonas, Boak, Amon and Grey there and managed to bring in some gun players on top of that.

Their current build started all the way back in 2013 when they drafted Wines, Clurey, Jonas, then a year later they got Impey, DBJ.and Amon. They've been able to maintain top level talent since then.

Yes, and as I told you, that's irrelevant to the current build.

I don't. Because they're irrelevant to the current one. The profile, the build, hell, the players are completely different. We've turned over 2/3 of the list since we started this rebuild. That's just a fact. 28/42 players on our list weren't in 2020.

You so eloquently compared this build to Carlton's. You think this is the year that we should stop getting smashed? Your own timeline disagrees with you. You're comparing our year 4 to their year 5. On your timeline of their rebuild it's the equivalent of 2019. Where they got smashed repeatedly.

Essendon fans are the worst because we're so ******* impatient. Any time someone new comes in and says "we have to be patient" we provide lip service in year 1 then lose our s**t in year 2 when it isn't fixed.

Wow, usually I read your posts and nod. BUT.. if you think we are in rebuild 2 then a) I think you are wrong and b) IF you are right then that is worse... FFS you would then be arguing that only twice in nearly quarter of a century of LOSING has our club stopped and thought.. maybe we could be better.

Also to suggest that Port is 'the same' as 2013 is just plain laughable mate. They literally only have 2 listed players from 2013.. one of them is Boak who was drafted that year! The other is Wines.. who is clearly on his last season and didn't play on Friday. So stop with the nonsense.

Most AFL lists are almost completely turned over every 3-4 years... especially if you have a bad list.

So here are the rebuilds that we were told were happening:
2004-2006: Sheedy was 'refreshing list' to add pace around the 'key' line of Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher, Hird et al.
2008 - 2010: Knights was 'cleaning up' the list to add pace for a run and gun style and usher in a new era
2011- 2014: Hird rebuilt list to include hard edge around the ball and favoured inside, gut runners (still our most successful on field era of the last two decades, even with the saga) and added 2-3 impact players (Goddard etc)
2015-2018: Bomber/Worsfold turned over list to recover from Saga, rebuild spine and look to add experience to cover 'saga' missing draft periods
2019 - 2021: Worsfold/Rutten was rebuilding list to be "blue collar" and wanted more defensive edged players
2023-2024: Scott completing rebuild to add.. everything, spine, midfield, defence, offence, footballers of any variety really.

So I'm happy for various opinions but please can we stop pretending this is the first or second time we have 'really' rebuilt the list.. Dodo has been hacking away at this thing for 20+ years just like every other club. The difference is that he is a bad recruiter, horrible trader and we have hired a succession of bad coaches and had absolutely no imperative to build a solid, competitive list.

Hird remains the only coach that got this club to do anything on field that merited any kind of enthusiasm. Hird was the only one that tried to get any kind of competitive performance out of the crap list that Dodo handed him. The other coaches haven't even come close to putting a competitive team on the park.. combination of lack of skill, lack of game plan, lack of gameday coaching, lack of fitness and never ending run of injuries.

Port Adelaide is actually a perfect example of a club that has been up, down and gone up.. They force themselves into relevancy every few years. Meanwhile.. same olds keep same olding.

 

[ant555]

Wow, usually I read your posts and nod. BUT.. if you think we are in rebuild 2 then a) I think you are wrong and b) IF you are right then that is worse... FFS you would then be arguing that only twice in nearly quarter of a century of LOSING has our club stopped and thought.. maybe we could be better.

Also to suggest that Port is 'the same' as 2013 is just plain laughable mate. They literally only have 2 listed players from 2013.. one of them is Boak who was drafted that year! The other is Wines.. who is clearly on his last season and didn't play on Friday. So stop with the nonsense.

Most AFL lists are almost completely turned over every 3-4 years... especially if you have a bad list.

So here are the rebuilds that we were told were happening:
2004-2006: Sheedy was 'refreshing list' to add pace around the 'key' line of Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher, Hird et al.
2008 - 2010: Knights was 'cleaning up' the list to add pace for a run and gun style and usher in a new era
2011- 2014: Hird rebuilt list to include hard edge around the ball and favoured inside, gut runners (still our most successful on field era of the last two decades, even with the saga) and added 2-3 impact players (Goddard etc)
2015-2018: Bomber/Worsfold turned over list to recover from Saga, rebuild spine and look to add experience to cover 'saga' missing draft periods
2019 - 2021: Worsfold/Rutten was rebuilding list to be "blue collar" and wanted more defensive edged players
2023-2024: Scott completing rebuild to add.. everything, spine, midfield, defence, offence, footballers of any variety really.

So I'm happy for various opinions but please can we stop pretending this is the first or second time we have 'really' rebuilt the list.. Dodo has been hacking away at this thing for 20+ years just like every other club. The difference is that he is a bad recruiter, horrible trader and we have hired a succession of bad coaches and had absolutely no imperative to build a solid, competitive list.

Hird remains the only coach that got this club to do anything on field that merited any kind of enthusiasm. Hird was the only one that tried to get any kind of competitive performance out of the crap list that Dodo handed him. The other coaches haven't even come close to putting a competitive team on the park.. combination of lack of skill, lack of game plan, lack of gameday coaching, lack of fitness and never ending run of injuries.

Port Adelaide is actually a perfect example of a club that has been up, down and gone up.. They force themselves into relevancy every few years. Meanwhile.. same olds keep same olding.

What do you call it when they replace the CEO / Coach / GM of football / List manager and bring in a former head of recruiting from another club to work in that department ?

I would say we are very much in another rebuild under new management.

 

[eth-dog]

Wow, usually I read your posts and nod. BUT.. if you think we are in rebuild 2 then a) I think you are wrong and b) IF you are right then that is worse... FFS you would then be arguing that only twice in nearly quarter of a century of LOSING has our club stopped and thought.. maybe we could be better.

Also to suggest that Port is 'the same' as 2013 is just plain laughable mate. They literally only have 2 listed players from 2013.. one of them is Boak who was drafted that year! The other is Wines.. who is clearly on his last season and didn't play on Friday. So stop with the nonsense.

Most AFL lists are almost completely turned over every 3-4 years... especially if you have a bad list.

So here are the rebuilds that we were told were happening:
2004-2006: Sheedy was 'refreshing list' to add pace around the 'key' line of Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher, Hird et al.
2008 - 2010: Knights was 'cleaning up' the list to add pace for a run and gun style and usher in a new era
2011- 2014: Hird rebuilt list to include hard edge around the ball and favoured inside, gut runners (still our most successful on field era of the last two decades, even with the saga) and added 2-3 impact players (Goddard etc)
2015-2018: Bomber/Worsfold turned over list to recover from Saga, rebuild spine and look to add experience to cover 'saga' missing draft periods
2019 - 2021: Worsfold/Rutten was rebuilding list to be "blue collar" and wanted more defensive edged players
2023-2024: Scott completing rebuild to add.. everything, spine, midfield, defence, offence, footballers of any variety really.

So I'm happy for various opinions but please can we stop pretending this is the first or second time we have 'really' rebuilt the list.. Dodo has been hacking away at this thing for 20+ years just like every other club. The difference is that he is a bad recruiter, horrible trader and we have hired a succession of bad coaches and had absolutely no imperative to build a solid, competitive list.

Hird remains the only coach that got this club to do anything on field that merited any kind of enthusiasm. Hird was the only one that tried to get any kind of competitive performance out of the crap list that Dodo handed him. The other coaches haven't even come close to putting a competitive team on the park.. combination of lack of skill, lack of game plan, lack of gameday coaching, lack of fitness and never ending run of injuries.

Port Adelaide is actually a perfect example of a club that has been up, down and gone up.. They force themselves into relevancy every few years. Meanwhile.. same olds keep same olding.

Okay, then you're usually right.

A rebuild to me is basically changing your whole core. Sheedy was trying to top up to stay relevant but 2005 happened and we got Ryder then Gumbleton.

And sure, ignore the part where I said their rebuild STARTED at the end of 2012, when they built most of their core for the past decade with Wines, followed by guys like DBJ, Amon, Clurey, Jonas with Boak and Grey there as experienced stars and then built from there.

That was their core. It was tweaked and built on but it largely stayed the same. So as far as I'm concerned, that's their build. Not the 2018 draft as you claim, but 2012.

You're saying that the rebuilds are determined by the coaches but not the list? I'm happy for you to have that opinion but when you're rebuilding, the key element is your core players. Not the coach.

2007-2020, like Port, was built around a core group that tweaked and changed throughout but largely stayed similar.

Knights and early Hird were built around the likes of Watson, Stanton, Hurley, Hooker, Ryder and Zaka. Then it moulded into Watson, Hurley, Hooker, Heppell, Goddard, Merrett, Fantasia and Daniher. When Woosha took over it became Hurley, Hooker, Heppell, Goddard, Merrett, Daniher, Fantasia, Saad and Stringer.

So for me the core there for the most part was tweaked but mostly because apart from Ryder, the older players of the core shuffled down in importance.

Then at the end of 2020, four players of the core group had either retired or left, another two were on their last legs so the core completely changed.

Merrett and Parish became the experienced part of our core, but we're building around the draftees like Cox, Perkins, Reid, Hobbs, Tsatas and Caddy. That is our new core around this build.

Do you count the past 3 and a bit as one rebuild or two? Because for me it's the same build. We've completely changed the core of our group. Port 2013-now is an example of a club whose core is largely consistent, with some tweaks. Similar to us from 2007-2020, albeit more successful without claiming the ultimate prize.

 

[faible]

Wow, usually I read your posts and nod. BUT.. if you think we are in rebuild 2 then a) I think you are wrong and b) IF you are right then that is worse... FFS you would then be arguing that only twice in nearly quarter of a century of LOSING has our club stopped and thought.. maybe we could be better.

Also to suggest that Port is 'the same' as 2013 is just plain laughable mate. They literally only have 2 listed players from 2013.. one of them is Boak who was drafted that year! The other is Wines.. who is clearly on his last season and didn't play on Friday. So stop with the nonsense.

Most AFL lists are almost completely turned over every 3-4 years... especially if you have a bad list.

So here are the rebuilds that we were told were happening:
2004-2006: Sheedy was 'refreshing list' to add pace around the 'key' line of Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher, Hird et al.
2008 - 2010: Knights was 'cleaning up' the list to add pace for a run and gun style and usher in a new era
2011- 2014: Hird rebuilt list to include hard edge around the ball and favoured inside, gut runners (still our most successful on field era of the last two decades, even with the saga) and added 2-3 impact players (Goddard etc)
2015-2018: Bomber/Worsfold turned over list to recover from Saga, rebuild spine and look to add experience to cover 'saga' missing draft periods
2019 - 2021: Worsfold/Rutten was rebuilding list to be "blue collar" and wanted more defensive edged players
2023-2024: Scott completing rebuild to add.. everything, spine, midfield, defence, offence, footballers of any variety really.

So I'm happy for various opinions but please can we stop pretending this is the first or second time we have 'really' rebuilt the list.. Dodo has been hacking away at this thing for 20+ years just like every other club. The difference is that he is a bad recruiter, horrible trader and we have hired a succession of bad coaches and had absolutely no imperative to build a solid, competitive list.

Hird remains the only coach that got this club to do anything on field that merited any kind of enthusiasm. Hird was the only one that tried to get any kind of competitive performance out of the crap list that Dodo handed him. The other coaches haven't even come close to putting a competitive team on the park.. combination of lack of skill, lack of game plan, lack of gameday coaching, lack of fitness and never ending run of injuries.

Port Adelaide is actually a perfect example of a club that has been up, down and gone up.. They force themselves into relevancy every few years. Meanwhile.. same olds keep same olding.

Hird's best season was 2013 with 14 wins and 107%

Rutten's best season was 2021 with 11 wins, but 109%

This idea that Hird is some kind of super coach isn't really true, we were a mid-table side under Hird, we've been a mid-table side under pretty much everyone else. Pretty much every coach has been able to have patches where everything goes right and the team looks like it'll do something, but ultimately it doesn't.

Also most AFL lists are completely turned over every 3-4 years?

 

[Lore]

Hird's best season was 2013 with 14 wins and 107%

Rutten's best season was 2021 with 11 wins, but 109%

This idea that Hird is some kind of super coach isn't really true, we were a mid-table side under Hird, we've been a mid-table side under pretty much everyone else. Pretty much every coach has been able to have patches where everything goes right and the team looks like it'll do something, but ultimately it doesn't.

Also most AFL lists are completely turned over every 3-4 years?

Hird's 2013 stats are propped up a bit by winning 3 of those 14 against GWS (x2) and GC as brand new expansion teams, too.

 

[fairbump_playon]

Hird's best season was 2013 with 14 wins and 107%

Rutten's best season was 2021 with 11 wins, but 109%

This idea that Hird is some kind of super coach isn't really true, we were a mid-table side under Hird, we've been a mid-table side under pretty much everyone else. Pretty much every coach has been able to have patches where everything goes right and the team looks like it'll do something, but ultimately it doesn't.

Also most AFL lists are completely turned over every 3-4 years?

Come on. There is so much story behind the stats you quoted.

In 2013 Essendon was 13-3 after Round 17 despite being dogged by the saga which had landed in Feb. The pressure was mounting all year, and then performance sagged off over the last 6 weeks - a period in which the President resigned, charges were laid by the the AFL against Hird, Bruce Reid, Bomber & Corcoran and then the club was kicked out of finals, the coach banned for 12 months and draft picks removed.

Even 14 wins under those circumstances is a pretty amazing feat, but it so easily could have been 17 wins.

There's really no comparing that performance with Rutten's 2021..

 

[Squeaky]

Hird's 2013 stats are propped up a bit by winning 3 of those 14 against GWS (x2) and GC as brand new expansion teams, too.

I reckon we struggled to put GWS away too.
A young Jeremy Cameron towelled whoever went to him that day...

 

[yodellinhank]

Okay, then you're usually right.

A rebuild to me is basically changing your whole core. Sheedy was trying to top up to stay relevant but 2005 happened and we got Ryder then Gumbleton.

And sure, ignore the part where I said their rebuild STARTED at the end of 2012, when they built most of their core for the past decade with Wines, followed by guys like DBJ, Amon, Clurey, Jonas with Boak and Grey there as experienced stars and then built from there.

That was their core. It was tweaked and built on but it largely stayed the same. So as far as I'm concerned, that's their build. Not the 2018 draft as you claim, but 2012.

You're saying that the rebuilds are determined by the coaches but not the list? I'm happy for you to have that opinion but when you're rebuilding, the key element is your core players. Not the coach.

2007-2020, like Port, was built around a core group that tweaked and changed throughout but largely stayed similar.

Knights and early Hird were built around the likes of Watson, Stanton, Hurley, Hooker, Ryder and Zaka. Then it moulded into Watson, Hurley, Hooker, Heppell, Goddard, Merrett, Fantasia and Daniher. When Woosha took over it became Hurley, Hooker, Heppell, Goddard, Merrett, Daniher, Fantasia, Saad and Stringer.

So for me the core there for the most part was tweaked but mostly because apart from Ryder, the older players of the core shuffled down in importance.

Then at the end of 2020, four players of the core group had either retired or left, another two were on their last legs so the core completely changed.

Merrett and Parish became the experienced part of our core, but we're building around the draftees like Cox, Perkins, Reid, Hobbs, Tsatas and Caddy. That is our new core around this build.

Do you count the past 3 and a bit as one rebuild or two? Because for me it's the same build. We've completely changed the core of our group. Port 2013-now is an example of a club whose core is largely consistent, with some tweaks. Similar to us from 2007-2020, albeit more successful without claiming the ultimate prize.

Sheedy was trying to top up to stay relevant is a myth that just gets repeated. Have a look at the amount of picks they were taking in the early 00's, they were churning through players compared to what we do now. They took some old blokes with pre season draft picks, when they'd already brought in 4-5 young players.

 

[brain taylor]

Come on. There is so much story behind the stats you quoted.

In 2013 Essendon was 13-3 after Round 17 despite being dogged by the saga which had landed in Feb. The pressure was mounting all year, and then performance sagged off over the last 6 weeks - a period in which the President resigned, charges were laid by the the AFL against Hird, Bruce Reid, Bomber & Corcoran and then the club was kicked out of finals, the coach banned for 12 months and draft picks removed.

Even 14 wins under those circumstances is a pretty amazing feat, but it so easily could have been 17 wins.

There's really no comparing that performance with Rutten's 2021..

well rutten didn’t almost destroy the club so i guess he has that going for him

 

[ant555]

I think you have to say we are at least in year 2 of another build , probably year 1 given Scott and Vozzo got a free hit last year .
I know we took stock at the end of 2020 player wise but you can not change the CEO / Coach / GM of football / List manager / Captain and then just say okay folks steady as she goes. It is another reset of the ongoing build we have had going for umpteen years.

 

[Old Campaigner]

It strikes me as a bit of a pointless argument, regardless of whether it’s two rebuilds or 15 the fact remains that whatever had been done beforehand has largely been a failure and we’re back at square one or two trying to turn things around

 

[MiguelM]

It strikes me as a bit of a pointless argument, regardless of whether it’s two rebuilds or 15 the fact remains that whatever had been done beforehand has largely been a failure and we’re back at square one or two trying to turn things around

And at least from the outside Scott & Vozzo have pushed hard to fix offield, footy dept, etc. and culture. Over the next few years we will turn over half the side. It is the recruiting in the coming yearsthat will be pivotal.

One thing I like is Scott seems well respected within the playing group.

 

[Shanghaistu]

The Dees are having an absolute shocker - they might get the media pile-on baton this week

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

They have about 2 players from their 2013 list

Yes but those 2 are core.

 

[yodellinhank]

Yes but those 2 are core.

Hard core?

 

[Ati Tude]

The Dees are having an absolute shocker - they might get the media pile-on baton this week

Nah, I reckon Ess, Crows and Tigers (if they lose to WC in Perth) are the front runners. Melb at least made the scoreboard respectable in the last quarter.

 

[outersanctum]

Hird's best season was 2013 with 14 wins and 107%

Rutten's best season was 2021 with 11 wins, but 109%

This idea that Hird is some kind of super coach isn't really true, we were a mid-table side under Hird, we've been a mid-table side under pretty much everyone else. Pretty much every coach has been able to have patches where everything goes right and the team looks like it'll do something, but ultimately it doesn't.

Also most AFL lists are completely turned over every 3-4 years?

Sometimes it not just the end result.. We were top 4 for long periods in several years under Hird and by the time he had built his list and plan.. we were flying before the Saga killed that season dead. I have no doubt that had the saga not been the saga.. we would have final (or two) with hird and that squad.

What I do know is that we were also winning interstate.. finding a tougher edge and actually had a brand of football that was going somewhere.

 

[Agronomus]

Yes. He stayed too long as it was. The fact is we did build a side that was on the verge of doing something but we ****ed it up with the saga. My opinion is that side could have been a top 4 contender and we had a VFL side that was playing finals at the time as well. We just fumbled the ball as a club and never recovered. The next mistake in hindsight was not looking to rebuild after 2016 and looking to trade players out and start again but given recent history we could have screwed those draft picks anyway.

If that side had have Martin and Merrett we would have

 

[Agronomus]

I remember this season reasonably well…we were flying…top 2 (thereabouts) after 11 rounds and then we came up against Hawthorn and got belted I think…the soft tissues started from then and we lost like 8 or something from the second half of the season.

I remember the media saying we were pushed too hard in pre-season blah blah…then early Feb 2013 Presser with Hird, Hamilton and Evans…I knew a Presser called that early in the year something was up…the rest is history…

I read this thread and I feel comfort that I hold the same views as everyone here, but then I’m like “are we really back here again?!”…

Apparently “bad luck” the 2016 draft was shallow at the top, the 2020 draft was Covid impacted…and we had a top-4 list in 2012…is it bad luck or bad management?

Wasn't the media narrative the injuries occurred because we had to suddenly stop taking all those performance enhancing drugs?

 

[Ati Tude]

Wasn't the media narrative the injuries occurred because we had to suddenly stop taking all those performance enhancing drugs?

Weren't the drugs we were supposedly taking to assist injury recovery (annoyed me in those CAS findings that they looked at the team win/loss record in 1st half of 2012 when supposedly on the drugs vs 2nd half of year without drugs when in reality the wins and losses was all about the draw we had and they should have looked at injury recovery stats given the nature of the supposed drug involved).

 

[Snake Charmer]

We can put this thread on ice..

 

[Beerfish]

We can put this thread on ice..

Cool. Thanks for bumping it.

Yes I see the irony.

 

[Snake Charmer]

Cool. Thanks for bumping it.

Yes I see the irony.

There was some incredible melts in here. Worth the bump lol

 

[outersanctum]

There was some incredible melts in here. Worth the bump lol

Unlike the media.. I don't think opinions should rise and fall on the back of single performances - good or bad.

tonight is not time for negatives.. just enjoy the win but FWIW.. I stand by my stated opinions around our list, our game plan and our defensive efforts.

Hopefully... beyond all hope.. tonight is the baseline moving forward. but we have said that before... so many times.

 

[jannissary]

There was some incredible melts in here. Worth the bump lol

i stick by it, a lot of our worries were fixed (i daresay) or marginally addressed.