All is not lost: Essendon will be competitive

The WADA anvil has dropped on Essendon, crushing them more than most suspected. Twelve players suspended for season 2016. A team in disarray. A club fractured in ways that will take decades to heal.

The fallout from this entire saga will become history one day, but in more pressing news, the 2016 football season is hastily approaching; it’s only five weeks until the preseason NAB Challenge kicks off.

Are Essendon automatic locks for the wooden spoon, as much of the public and many bookies are already declaring? Or should we hold out hope that they can be competitive?

Let’s look at a snapshot of what Essendon’s best 22 might have looked like, pre-sanctions. Highlighted are the players no longer available after the CAS decision.

B: Mark Baguley, Michael Hurley, James Gwilt
HB: Michael Hibberd, Cale Hooker, Martin Gleeson
C: Craig Bird, Jobe Watson, Brent Stanton
HF: David Zaharakis, Shaun McKernan, Adam Cooney
F: Zach Merrett, Joe Daniher, Travis Colyer
Foll: Matthew Leuenberger, Brendon Goddard, Dyson Heppell
Int: Ben Howlett, Heath Hocking, David Myers, Darcy Parish

By that reckoning, you might allow for seven or eight, perhaps nine, of the starting 18 being unavailable through suspension. Every year we see some clubs have to deal with those kind of losses through injury.

More:
» Essendon let them down, but players only have themselves to blame
» CAS’s verdict means everyone loses
» Should Jobe Watson be stripped of his Brownlow Medal
» Hey WADA, you got the wrong man
» Potential top-up Bombers: Could Kelly, Stokes or Lake return?
» Essendon doping saga: Full list of players to miss 2016 AFL season

Where the Bombers have really been hurt is that they’re going to be unquestionably missing their four best players – Jobe Watson, Dyson Heppell, Cale Hooker, Michael Hurley – and six of their best eight – adding in Michael Hibberd and Brent Stanton.

Many would claim that Travis Colyer is among the most important players too, given his pace and line-breaking abilities, something in short supply at Essendon over the last couple of years.

Ben Howlett, Heath Hocking and David Myers are veterans whose experience will be missed, and at worst were going to be very good depth players in a year of blooding youth. Tom Bellchambers and Tayte Pears are the two suspended players not in the best 22, but they could and would have provided handy back-up.

The Dons have been gutted of key personnel, but will they be able to muster competitiveness once the fill-ins have been acquired?

Essendon are allowed to immediately upgrade players off their rookie list, but the six players on there have played a mere seven games between them. Will Hams is the most likely suspect to have an impact, having been in the system a few years, albeit for only five games after debuting in 2013.

More likely, most of the Dons’ 2016 side will come from existing players on the list, of the youthful variety, plus a potential mix of grizzled ex-AFL veterans keen for one more year, or perhaps a host of ex-AFL 20-somethings that have some level of talent as well as something to prove.

The Bombers have been severely depleted in the backline, with Hooker and Hurley in the best handful of defensive talls in the competition, and Hibberd a handy flanker.

Mitch Brown was given a lifeline by the Dons after a failed career at Geelong, where he tallied only 15 games in six years on the list between 2009 and 2014. He was tried as a key tall at both ends of the ground in his time at the Cats, but has clearly improved since then and is ready for another crack. Recruited as a depth player, he may now form an integral part of the Essendon defence.

His key defensive partner may well be Michael Hartley, a 22-year-old who could prove to be an inspired pick-up in last year’s draft. He was the VFL centre-half-back of the year in 2015, and spent 2012-13 on the Collingwood rookie list, so is familiar with the AFL scene.

Courtenay Dempsey has had his issues, but we know he can slot into the backline no problems and provide some run and carry. Shaun Edwards, knocking on the door as a best 22 player anyway, had his moments as a forward in 2015 but played as a backman in his time at Greater Western Sydney. One way or the other, he’ll be relied upon to play a lot of football this year.

The midfield was going to lack consistency and class at the best of times, not helped now by the absence of Watson, Heppell, Stanton and Colyer.

Increased midfield time is there for the taking by the likes of Jayden Laverde and rookie Darcy Parish. Expect Zach Merrett, already one of the most promising young players in the competition, to take another step closer to becoming a fully fledged star.

Can Jason Ashby make the grade after a few years on the list? Can Orazio Fantasia in his third season? Will Aaron Francis have an immediate impact straight from the draft? Will Alex Morgan? Mason Redman? Every year there are a number of first-year players that perform above expectation, and beyond that expected of their draft position.

Players like Jackson Merrett and Patrick Ambrose have been battling away at senior level for minimal impact, but are now approaching their mid-20s, and must try find something more within.

Not a year goes past now when we don’t see players recruited from the state leagues have an impact in the AFL, each club searching for the next Michael Barlow or James Podsiadly. Whomever the Bombers pick up, and there are plenty of rumours circulating already, some of them will make the grade to a suitable level.

Essendon will also target ex-players from other clubs, perhaps in their mid- and early-20s, not just with an eye on 2015 but perhaps even for the next few years, hoping to unearth a diamond in the delisted rough.

Supporters from each club, who have a more intricate knowledge of their players than anyone in the media, will have a player or two in mind that they think was unlucky to be delisted and could still play some decent senior footy.

The Bombers won’t be in a great place next year, but they’ll have the bones of a competitive team that will be fleshed out as the season goes on.

GWS won two games in their first season, both times with 15 first-year players. Gold Coast won three games in their inaugural year, with 14 first-year players each time. Essendon won’t have anything like that imbalance of inexperience at any stage in 2016.

In fact, the Dons won’t be any worse than any club that has gone through a drastic rebuild in recent times. People said Richmond wouldn’t win a game in 2010 after starting the year 0-9. They won six.

The expansion sides weren’t going to get within 100 points of any team in their first years apparently. They each won games. Gold Coast hadn’t won a game after 15 rounds in 2012 and didn’t even finish on the bottom of the ladder.

Hell, even Melbourne have won games in each season over the last ten years, proving that anything is possible in AFL football.

Even looking at last year, it would be surprising if the Dons inflicted some of the trash that Carlton subjected all football fans to on some of those infamous Friday nights.

John Worsfold will get many more games into his younger players than previously planned, and will have a keener idea of who can ultimately make the grade at season’s end. There is some upside for the Bombers in the medium and long term. The light at the end of the tunnel is no longer a WADA train.

Expect Essendon to be competitive, and have a second thought about taking the skinny odds on them for the wooden spoon if you’re so inclined. The value might just lay elsewhere.