AtomicBlonde
Cancelled
A certain amount of natural attrition occurred, and perhaps Knights could've cut back harder, but Sheedy had debuted Gumbleton, Hocking, Reimers, Jetta, Davey, Neagle, Houli & Hislop in 2007. Knights retained all of those and followed with Pears, Hooker, Bellchambers, Myers, Daniher, Atkinson, Williams & Magin the following year. 16 newcomers over two seasons is a new broom; Terry Wallace, who was supposedly rebuilding, introduced just 6 new players in that time. I think Knights made bigger calls than Hird has done to date. Perhaps Hird lacked faith in Essendon's recruiters in the face of a compromised draft?
Knights 1 - Bolton (28), Bradley (21), Camporeale (32), Cole (24), Heffernan (28), Hird (34), M.Johnson (29), McKinnon (20)
Knights 2 - Chartres (23), Dick (19), Hislop (20), Johns (24), J.Johnson (30), Lee (22), Michael (31), Peverill (29), Ramanauskas (27)
Knights 3 - Carroll (19), German (19), Klemke (19), Lloyd (31), Lovett (26), Lucas (31), Magin (20), McPhee (27), Nash (24), Skipworth (27)
Hird 1 - Atkinson (25), Bock (20), Houli (22), Laycock (26), Marigliani (24), Still (19), Williams (22)
Playing very well for the Tigers off the half-back line.