Club History Players that you thought would make it but didn't.

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S.Gumbleton :'(
 
I really thought Jackson Merrett was going to be a handy player for years to come - he showed some very promising signs early on.
Really looked to have good run and carry and could accumulate at times. Even his skills weren't too bad. Somehow just didn't end up working out.
Now we are stuck with Zac :)
 

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The big one for me was Dalgliesh.

Vander18 said:
Agree - never understood his delisting. Had finally become a player and we dumped him. Hied did have an unhealthy obsession with big, contested ball winning mids.
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I thought we would delist Dyson literally every single year, except the year that we did lol.
But I think he was too good for this thread.
 
There’s really 2 categories here, the ones that were injury/attitude related and the poorly developed, poor attitude/other category.

Pears, Begley, Gumby are probably the obvious ones for the former category.

Alex Browne, Marigliani, Houli and Luke Davis the latter for me.

Browne and Davis came to the club at a time where it was basically ‘if you don’t develop yourself you’re no chance’. Marigliani was an unfortunate monetary issue and I never thought Houli would be BOG in a grand final but I knew there was a genuine quality AFL player in there, classic Knights whiteanting there.
 
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Todd Ridley- I was probably too young to understand any strengths and weaknesses he might of had but I think he kicked 4-5 on debut and I thought he would make it.

Shane Harvey- I thought he would be a good player, not like his brother of course , but good.

Marcus Pickett- I guess I got sucked in with "brother of.." more than once.

And like others, Begley.
 
Kavanagh, Dalgleish, Browne and Melksham.
Im convinced those 4 at a better development club at the time could have been much better then they ended up being (understand Melksham had a great career just not as a mid). 2014-15 etc we really butchered development I reckon
 
FlyingV said:
Kavanagh, Dalgleish, Browne and Melksham.
Im convinced those 4 at a better development club at the time could have been much better then they ended up being (understand Melksham had a great career just not as a mid). 2014-15 etc we really butchered development I reckon
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During that period we were the worst team in the competition at giving kids game time in their right positions. Only under Rutten have we really moved away from that.

Melksham was a talisman of that. Would be okay on a flank for a month, then would get a chance in the middle have a dominant game, then maybe not back up as well and find himself on a flank for another 6 weeks.
 

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Main player that comes to mind is Kyle Reimers. Lots of goals and could play. Seem to remember something about coaches not getting along with him.

Other names that sorta fit the bill for one reason or another:
Josh Begley
Jason Laycock
Gumbleton
Courtney Johns
Cupido
Brent Prismall
James Davies. The surprise first dons pick in 2000 draft.
 
Jackson Merrett and Lauchlan Dalgleish burned me the most.
 
Chief Hopper said:
Main player that comes to mind is Kyle Reimers. Lots of goals and could play. Seem to remember something about coaches not getting along with him.

Other names that sorta fit the bill for one reason or another:
Josh Begley
Jason Laycock
Gumbleton
Courtney Johns
Cupido
Brent Prismall
James Davies. The surprise first dons pick in 2000 draft.
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Here's one I prepared on Laycock earlier:

BrunoV said:
Hmm, I think I'm going to have to go with big Jason Laycock.

201cm, 105kg | Ruck / full forward. He played 58 games for Essendon kicking 36 goals between 2003 and 2010.

A prodigiously talented ruck and tall forward, Laycock was a fitting selection at # 10 in the 2002 AFL draft.

He was one of the earlier, experimental models of the sort of player it has taken the industry a long time to get right at the draft table. Some of the big kids lumber too much or are not natural footballers. Some do not really play as big men, crashing packs and taking contested marks. I do not believe any of these criticisms apply to the big man from Devonport, Northern Tassie. His problem was the lack of desire to push himself to be a professional resulting in the career ending spiral of poor conditioning and injury. He was good enough to coast through 7 years on an AFL list.

When fit he got around the ground with better than average mobility for a man his size, without said mobility being spectacular, and he was also a beautiful kick of the ball. I wouldn't say he was a pack crashing, body crunching type but he was a high quality contested/pack mark who could probably play forward well enough to make a career as a second ruck / key forward in modern terms, though he was also capable of playing as the #1 ruck. His ruckwork was Bellchambers quality in terms of his ability to hit the ball creativeily and to advantage.

His career may have peaked with what should have been recognized with an ANZAC day medal as a third year player in 2005, collecting 18 disposals, 7 marks (most of which were contested), 2 goals and 7 hitouts. That started a 3 week run which may have been his form. In that third game, against Adam Goodes (when the Swans still played him in the ruck) he had 10 touches, 25 hit outs and kicked 2 goals.

He didn't play a lot in 2006 but I recall him forming a promising partnership with Hille and some of that is born out by the numbers, with Laycock showing an ability to find enough of the ball while playing forward.

2007 was his best year capped by a 14 possessions, 2 goal and 28 hitout game against Melbourne/Jeff White and 20 possessions, 17 hit outs and 1 goal against Carlton (Cain Ackland).

I wanted a guy to give me flexibility with the use of Ryder and Salmon depending on the opponent. Laycock is my man as he can play in a forward pocket and be dangerous enough to occupy a quality defender or he could play as the number 1 ruck.

Over to you jmoo wan
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The recruiting at the end of 2002 delivered 3 players of outrageous talent which was known to all almost immediately: Laycock (at pick 10), Winderlich (at pick 11) and, in addition, we traded Cupido in from the Lions. We also picked up a pudgy Jobe Watson.

Cupido kicked 39 goals in 2003 a year in which he was Wingard good. Laycock put together games, described in my post above, which I think clearly justify my view of the talent he had and Winderlich, well, here is another I prepared earlier:

BrunoV said:
In the interest of ticking this over, Jason Winderlich.

Schpiel to come.

188cm, 182 kg | 129 games with Essendon between 2003 to 2015 for 83 goals.

half/mid-sized forward and midfielder

At his height with electrifying speed Winderlich was, in many respects, one of the early prototypes of 'that midfielder' that every club is looking for in almost every draft but which, in reality, appears only every few years. As with all early prototypes, there were kinks and, I am sad to say, Winderlich's level of raw ability seemed to be matched only by a constitutional weakness that prevented him from ever realising his potential.

What should have been a glittering career was ruined by the toll of at least 2 back surgeries, an ACL and the constant presence of hamstring injuries.

Still, we got to see what he could do when he played 19 games in each of 2009 and 2010 mainly through the middle of the ground. The results were bloody good. He had both the ability to accumulate and the pace to break the game open from stoppages (though I would not say he was particularly strong inside) and certainly in space.

Just as it looked like Winderlich had finally put his injury problems behind him, he tore his ACL a few games in to 2011 and the rest is basically history.

His size and speed allowed him to fill in at full forward on many occasions where he could beat just about anyone on the lead but also played with a defensive substance.

He's perfect for this game as, if we are just concerned with his best, we are talking about one of the top players to play for Essendon post 2000 era. On what we saw he could have been anything.
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I'm a big believer that successful 'recruiting' is much more a matter of nurture than it is nature. On the whole, it's not hard to identify talent. I know this offends some people but it is simply a reality. I think you could mount a pretty strong case that Watson is the least talented of the players discussed in this post.

Having the environment to get the most out of the talent is clearly the most important factor and is also the difficult part.

In the alternate universe in which we hadn't already fallen a decade behind the competition in terms of strength and conditioning and player development 2002 which delivered Laycock, Winderlich, Watson and Cupido is being discussed as one of the greatest bits of recruiting of all time.
 
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BrunoV said:
Here's one I prepared on Laycock earlier:




The recruiting at the end of 2002 delivered 3 players of outrageous talent which was known to all almost immediately: Laycock (at pick 10), Winderlich (at pick 11) and, in addition, we traded Cupido in from the Lions. We also picked up a pudgy Jobe Watson.

Cupido kicked 39 goals in 2003 a year in which he was Wingard good. Laycock put together games, described in my post above, which I think clearly justify my view of the talent he had and Winderlich, well, here is another I prepared earlier:




I'm a big believer that successful 'recruiting' is much more a matter of nurture than it is nature. On the whole, it's not hard to identify talent. I know this offends some people but it is a simply reality. I think you could mount a pretty strong case that Watson is the least talented of the players discussed in this post.

Having the environment to get the most out of the talent is clearly the most important factor and is also the difficult part.

In the alternate universe in which we hadn't already fallen a decade behind the competition in terms of strength and conditioning and player development 2002 which delivered Laycock, Winderlich, Watson and Cupido is being discussed as one of the greatest bits of recruiting of all time.
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Work rate / desire is massive.

As you said with Laycock (and Cupido) - plenty of talent but never made the most of it.

Jobe the opposite, not the raw talent of those guys (though his size was certainly a natural gift) but just worked to get the most out of himself.

Good internal people and processes can help the Laycock types become more like the Jobe types.
 
owen87 said:
Work rate / desire is massive.

As you said with Laycock (and Cupido) - plenty of talent but never made the most of it.

Jobe the opposite, not the raw talent of those guys (though his size was certainly a natural gift) but just worked to get the most out of himself.

Good internal people and processes can help the Laycock types become more like the Jobe types.
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Ah no, I'm sorry, Jobe had a ****ing shit tonne of talent. Yes he worked hard, but that is a very strange thing to say.
 
It was either James Hird or Mark McVeigh said that a young Tom Hislop was going to be a star.
 
Towno78 said:
Ah no, I'm sorry, Jobe had a ******* sh*t tonne of talent. Yes he worked hard, but that is a very strange thing to say.
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Slow, fat and a below average kick doesn't scream talent.

There are plenty of ball magnets who play in second tier comps.

He wasn't talentless, not by any stretch, but it took him 3 years before anyone could see a player and even then it was a basically last chance saloon.

Compare that to Cupido and Laycock turning in performances that should have landed them ANZAC medals in their first handful of games.

As Owen said, the fall back for Jobe was his size and clean hands. Without that rig I doubt he plays more than 20 afl games.
 
Foxx said:
It was either James Hird or Mark McVeigh said that a young Tom Hislop was going to be a star.
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Wasn't there off field 'issues' with Tom?
 
Towno78 said:
Ah no, I'm sorry, Jobe had a ******* sh*t tonne of talent. Yes he worked hard, but that is a very strange thing to say.
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Why do people assume 'didn't have the raw talent of those guys' means 'had no talent whatsoever'.

Of course he had talent. Every AFL player does.

Some more than others.

Jobe wasn't as talented as many other players that have come through EFC's doors, but he had the work-rate and desire to get everything out of himself, whereas more talented guys haven't been nearly as successful.

Joe Daniher would be close to the most naturally talented player EFC drafted in the last 2 decades, has every single physical gift you could ask for as a player, yet hasn't become anything close to what people thought he would because he doesn't have that work-rate to get everything out of himself.
 
What even is talent anyway? Nurture or nature? Does it just mean they were more developed, had more practice and better coaches before they were drafted?
 

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Club History Players that you thought would make it but didn't.

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