Round 18, 2013. Essendon are 13-3 and about to play Hawthorn for a share of top spot on the ladder. It is one month out from the finals.
No flat track bullies, Essendon enter their Hawthorn clash with some meaningful scalps, having knocked off eventual grand finalist Fremantle at Subiaco and embarrassed Collingwood on Anzac Day.
Round 15, 2012. The Bombers are 11-4, one win behind ladder leaders Collingwood, a team they lost to by a contentious point earlier in the year. They have a positive win-loss record against other teams in the eight and look set to entrench themselves in the top four.
Both these seasons, the two most recent under James Hird, were derailed for reasons largely independent of football. Essendon would finish 2012 on a seven-game losing streak and miss the finals thanks to a seemingly incompetent training staff that oversaw a comical slew of soft-tissue injuries.
‘Incompetent’ is an adjective that training staff would have accepted with glee in 2013, as the supplements saga that engulfed Essendon that year finally took its mental and physical toll at the back end of the season, causing the Dons to lose four of their last five games by 39+ points and get kicked out of the finals.
When Essendon has been allowed to play football unencumbered under James Hird, they’ve been pretty damn good. Even last year with Jobe Watson missing two months and ASADA lingering like a schoolyard bully who may or may not steal their lunch money at any given moment, Essendon still managed to make the finals. So when James Hird tells us to ‘watch this space, we’re a very good football team’ like he did after Essendon’s incredible loss to Sydney last weekend, I tend to agree with him.
Essendon’s 12-point loss to the Swans is painfully symbolic of the Hird coaching era. A resolute, disciplined and clinical performance ultimately undermined by reasons ancillary to the game itself. A preseason without competitive matches and an emotionally draining week clearly played as much of a part in overrunning Essendon as Josh Kennedy and Lance Franklin did. Essendon’s fourth quarter fade-out can be explained away as a fluke. Its first three quarters cannot.
Before fatigue set it, Essendon simply dominated last year’s regular season champs. They controlled every aspect of the game, winning the ball at stoppages and using it with precision when they got it. The Dons played with the conviction that ASADA failed to bring down.
Last year Essendon ranked second only to Hawthorn in uncontested possessions and effective disposal percentage. The mark of a good team (the top seven teams in uncontested possessions per game last year all made the finals), the Bombers get the ball out into space and use it well when it’s out there. They’re for real.
Melbourne beating the Gold Coast felt like one team showed up while the other did not; Essendon beating Sydney for those first three quarters felt like one good team bludgeoning another into submission.
Knowing who you are and exactly where your team is at can be a powerful thing and it’s an awareness that Essendon has this year. The recruiting over the past two off-seasons of Paul Chapman (33), Adam Cooney (29), James Gwilt (28) and Jonathan Giles (27) demonstrates that Essendon knows its time is now. Jobe Watson is 30 and Brendon Goddard is 29. The Bombers are ripe.
In Watson, Goddard and Dyson Heppell, Essendon has three elite top 25 players, a strong foundation from which to launch a top four assault. Watson is a warrior, the spiritual and literal leader of Essendon, the embodiment of toughness, grit and an underrated polish.
With Dean Robinson ignominiously dismissed, Brendon Goddard is the true ‘weapon’ at Windy Hill these days, a Swiss-Army Knife of a footballer and the only player in the competition who can play all 17 positions on the field aside from ruck at an above average level. Heppell is the happy medium between these two, combining the ferocity of Watson with the extra-terrestrial calmness of Goddard. He’s a star, and there aren’t odds on him being the next captain of Essendon.
After struggling for years to find genuine star depth, in 2015 the Dons have a complement of excellent players to put alongside their holy trinity. Michael Hibberd is an elite half-back in the mould of Grant Birchall. Zach Merrett is a future star, already playing with a class that belies his age.
Cale Hooker and Michael Hurley combine to form just about the best one-on-one key defensive duo in the league. Hurley played Franklin on Saturday as well as anyone inside 50. There are shades of Chris Tarrant in his play.
Heath Hocking is one of the handful of best taggers in the league while David Zaharakis and Brent Stanton are the hard-running accumulators on the outside that every good team needs. The Chapman and Cooney pickups are reminiscent of Collingwood’s recruiting of Darren Jolly and Luke Ball at the end of 2009; stars at the back-end of their prime with the class and experience to potentially push a team over the top.
Long a glaring weakness, Essendon’s bottom six is now a strength. To call Travis Colyer a ‘revelation’ would be a little strong, but he has been revelatory, adding foot speed and tenacity to Essendon’s midfield en route to being named the Bombers’ Most Improved Player last year.
Jake Melksham and Ben Howlett are tough nuts, racking up 21 tackles between them against Sydney. 92 players were taken before Mark Baguely in the 2012 draft but only four of them have played more games than he has. He’s solidified himself as a staple of Essendon’s backline, finishing ninth in last year’s Best and Fairest.
Paddy Ambrose is an elite physical specimen and an endurance beast, someone that VFL coach Hayden Skipworth described as ‘the best athlete he had seen in AFL footy in 15 years’. Martin Gleeson, all 69kg of him, is Andrew Mackie-lite (literally and figuratively), a wiry half-back who more than compensates for his lack of brawn with composure, heady reading of the play and excellent ball use.
The three wildcards all come from key positions and Essendon’s hopes will likely rest largely on their huge, enigmatic shoulders. If Tom Bellchambers, Jake Carlisle and Joe Daniher play up to their potential this year then Essendon aren’t just a top four chance; they can win the flag.
Of course, this is a lot to ask from a team that hasn’t won a final since 2004. But the talent is there and the timing is right. This isn’t a team like Carlton, Gold Coast or Collingwood that can rationalise an exit in the first week of finals as a positive building block.
Essendon’s window is now and it knows it. And for the first time in three seasons the Essendon Football Club can actually focus on and unilaterally devote itself to football. That’s a prospect that should make Essendon supporters buoyant and the rest of the competition fearful.
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