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With the seemingly never ending ASADA investigation into Essendon taking up much analysis of the club, a number of Essendon success stories have not had the opportunity to be widely discussed.
It’s probably due to fan fatigue, but when one thinks or talks about Essendon now it is inevitably in relation to their drug hearing.
But if fans and the media took a chance to look beyond this scandal they would see a club that is making the most of limited chances to keep a relevant playing list.
Essendon have been sanctioned through the draft over the past two seasons, yet have done just enough to keep their team improving. The 2014 draft of Essendon might be the best example yet of getting even more than wildest dreams would have afforded.
Credit to the Essendon list management team who have been able to continue to build a finals contending team despite great turmoil, and also safeguard the future of the club in the worst case scenario involving player suspensions.
Essendon have been able to rapidly rejuvenate their list over the past three seasons. Some of that rejuvenation is with experience at the trade table but a larger part is taking the best available talent at the draft.
They have had limited picks, as the 2014 two pick example shows, yet they are not trying to over think the draft. They are simply getting the best players regardless of what the negatives may be.
And for that reason it is remarkable to think that two players who were at various times considered top 10 draft talents could both fall to Essendon at the end of the first round of the draft. In Jayden Laverde and Kyle Langford, Essendon got two of the best in the draft simply by taking what the other clubs gave to them.
In the week leading up to the draft, Laverde was considered a chance to be a top 10 pick to Collingwood. Raw numbers and accolades suggest that Laverde should have been a top 10 pick. He won All-Australian honours and showed himself to be an elite user of the ball for his age bracket. At underage level he was a difficult match-up and had shown both a turn of speed and goal sense of elite midfielders. Yet for whatever reason almost all clubs passed on Laverde, leaving Essendon to swoop.
The irony of this selection was that even Essendon had passed over Laverde in this draft. They acquired him at pick 20 after using their first selection at pick 17 on Kyle Langford. Much like Laverde, Langford had been linked with Gold Coast as a top 10 pick.
Langford is a dual positioned tall prospect who, like other Bombers, has the ability to play both forward and back. His reading of the game is exceptional and while his best position is perhaps an unknown at this point, Langford does represent an option in either role.
There is no way that Essendon could have projected how this draft was going to play out. Not in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that they would have got both Langford and Laverde. One of these two would have been a win.
No-one can seemingly predict the end result of the Essendon supplements scandal, just like no-one can predict how a draft will go. They may not win the supplements scandal, but they did have a relative win at the 2014 draft.
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