Overall we have been much better at contested footy this year.

😂

To be honest it was ridiculous then and it is really silly now to blame our poor contested footy on Zach Merrett. Even though he leans outside, he has always had a good balance to his game. Just look at the year when our players were suspended – he was #1 for us in contested possessions, clearances and tackles. In only his third season. He has always had good averages in those statistics despite being better on the outside.

Your opinion just doesn’t make any sense mate, sorry 👍

You completely failed to understand my point.
How do you think live trades work? We offer a deal to Geelong, and they accept, and then we go ‘they must not want Caddy if they accepted, let’s call back and cancel the deal’. That’s not how it works. And how would Geelong know with 100% certainty that we were going to pick Caddy with their pick anyways? They could of predicted it due to our forward line needs, but they couldn’t be certain.
There were a number of question marks for us, so we traded a mediocre pick to make sure we got out man.

We traded up because Caddy was obviously our number one priority and we didn’t want to take any chances. There were other teams after Geelong’s pick too. And Geelong may have had O’Sullivan and Caddy around equal. The extra 2nd round draft pick from us could of potentially been the decider. There was no way of Essendon knowing for sure.
I completely disagree that it was panicked and senseless. Caddy was the best list fit around our pick by far, and for once Essendon was proactive in attaining the type of player we need, instead of sitting around and hoping. And this draft has pretty poor depth anyways – Geelong drafted a 26 year old small forward from the VFL with our pick.

haha what? You really think a professional club has no plans in the AFL? Essendon have clearly gone to the draft since 2020 and are continuing to do so. They have carefully managed the salary cap and are now able to target free agents, and have upgraded the list without spending any draft capital. This is the first time in awhile that I feel confident with the direction the club is going.

You got this one very wrong. Merrett has been an excellent captain for us. His best example of that was our win against the Tigers! No better way to beat them than by one point. Good times! 😂

Define ‘best run of injuries’. That showed you had the WORST run of IN GAME injuries (which was the simple point I was making) if you actually bothered to read it all.
It also didn’t state who was injured from each team, or account for Goldstein’s great run of form yet his pretty awful second half of the year since he still played. As I showed you had a lot of your previous years B&F top 10 out injured which obviously is much worse than fringe players missing games at other teams.

As for wanting a block feature based on my replies, you can simply stop responding. You don’t have anything interesting to add anyways.

I can say it another 100 times if you like? You keep hyper focusing on one of my points when I have stated many times there were numerous reasons. The state of the list, including personnel, injuries, form, and then the easy draw ALL contributed to your inconsistent performances. For example Todd Goldstein was MUCH better in the first half of the year (polled in the coaches votes in 7 early games) before knee issues basically ruined his season, Higgins played the first 7 rounds when you were winning (against a lot of bottom 5 teams), Waite kicked 27 goals in the first 9 rounds and only 2 more for the rest of the season (was injured for many of those games), Jacobs played in seven of those early wins and then never again, Sam Wright played in 6 early wins and missed the majority of the rest of the year etc.
If you would like to make a case as to why you believe North were inconsistent I am happy to hear it, but I am not interested in going around in circles anymore.

Maybe the list just wasn’t that great? Also I thought you were quite consistent in 2013 with a LOT of close losses (the worst being 38 and 39 points to the Swans and Dockers away who were both top 4 teams)

I disagree – I think when assessing a coaches performance the overall consistency matters. Scott’s teams were very consistent in being finals calibre or close, but the list simply wasn’t good enough to be much more than that apart from a couple of seasons where they got some mature recruits for a push.

The main injuries were:
Goldstein (knee issues meant he was a shadow of his form the year prior where he won the B&F)
Higgins (3rd in the b&f in 2015)
Jacobs (7th in the b&f)
Wright (9th in the b&f)
Waite (joint leading goal scorer in 2015)
To a lesser degree players like Mcdonald and Wood (he was in quite good form in 2016 when he played)
Then there was the in game injuries, and you copped a lot of them. See this article:
https://www.afl.com.au/news/120914/winners-and-losers-on-the-2016-injury-ladder

No I am just saying that in 2016 they had a number of injuries and older players coming to the end of their career (North had quite a lot of in game injuries in 2016). Their peak was 2014-15, and in 2016 they were still decent but declining.
They were inconsistent within seasons, but those Brad Scott teams weren’t exactly world beaters that should of won multiple premierships. The fact that they made it to two prelims and either made finals or were competing to make finals in most of his years at the club doesn’t really show ‘notorious inconsistency’ in my opinion. From 2010-2018 they finished 9th or better 7 times. And another season they finished 10th with ten losses by 16 points or less. They only really had the one poor season under Scott in 2017, but the club was in a transitional period by then as many players with 100+ games experience were retiring or close to the end (dal santo, harvey, petrie, firrito, thomas, swallow, hansen, gibson, waite, and thompson not long after).

So why do you think you went 3-10 for the second half of the year? You did get some good wins to start the year for sure, but you also beat all of the bottom five teams. So that probably did make the 9-0 start look better than it was. And as I mentioned, injuries and declining older players played a part.

From memory wasn’t norths draw easy to start 2016, and they also got injuries that year? That was the year they started declining anyways with a number of players near the end or retiring, and they mostly have been rebuilding since then.

Why do you think Merrett would be a poor captain?

Actually we have won multiple finals this century.
We have one of the youngest and most inexperienced lists in the AFL. It is going to take time for us to develop our young group.

He is significantly better sure. But Redman, Mcgrath, Hind and now D’Ambrossio is a good collection of half-backs in their own right. Since Saad is 28 and most likely wouldn’t be apart of our next premiership, I would take the top 10 pick every day. Other areas of our best 22 are much weaker than our half-backs and the top 10 pick could potentially help us a lot more going forward than what Saad would for a few more seasons.

You think they are ‘so upset’ because they boo an ex-player? That happens all the time and is completely normal.
I gave you three very good reasons why Essendon supporters like myself and others I talk to don’t care about Saad leaving at all.

He isn’t a huge loss. We have Redman, Hind, McGrath and now D’Ambrossio that can play his position. Even if those players aren’t as good, Saad is 28 and won’t be in his prime when we are challenging. Getting a top 10 pick for him was huge as we need to keep adding quality young players in other positions.

Saad would be Essendon’s best half back without a doubt, and I also think he is worthy of the All-Australian team. We would be stronger with him for sure.
But it is not exactly a position we are lacking in. We have Redman ( has taken his game to another level this season), Hind (finding some better form recently) and McGrath is also quite capable when playing that position. D’Ambrossio has only played one game, but looks promising. We got a top 10 pick for Saad, and he is turning 28 this year. We are rebuilding and it is unlikely that Adam would still be around or in his prime when we are ready to challenge. For those reasons I don’t think his loss would bother many Essendon supporters from a list management perspective. I don’t lament his loss while watching him tear it up against us or other teams. Actually I couldn’t care less how well Saad is going for Carlton. I simply enjoy what our capable half-backs are doing, while knowing that for present Saad’s loss is fairly minimal, and for the long term a potentially large benefit (due to the top 10 pick).
So from my perspective, the booing from Essendon supporters isn’t because of ‘Carltonism’. It is for other reasons that you have mentioned. He left us at a terrible time, when we were already losing multiple best 22 players. He then joined one of our biggest rivals, with unclear motives as to the reason behind the move.
And as for your question ‘is Saad the least boo-able player in the AFL?’ – nope. He may play the game the right way, but he is boo-able for a very simple reason: a lack of loyalty. He has already left two clubs. I know it is something I have to get used to, but it still means something to a lot of people.

Stringer will still play an important role in the midfield. You can’t just write him off by saying ‘he will be needed forward’. He played forward plenty last season yet he was 5th in the league for centre clearances per game and 20th for inside 50’s. It shows he is a really important cog to our midfield despite only playing there part time.
Some of the teams you listed here have better top end talent, but definitely not depth. The reason we can play Heppell back is because of our depth of midfielders. He has proven to be a good quality midfield when he plays there.
Shiel and Mcgrath haven’t played their best footy since they have both had serious injuries the past two seasons. I disagree that ‘Mcgrath may come good’ I think he has already shown a lot and it’s not like he’s out best mid, he is like our 4th.
I also strongly disagree that ‘we wont be getting much value’ from players like Cox, Perkins, Caldwell. It may be a bit too early for Hobbs, but I believe the others will play important roles. They were already best 22 or close last season.
Anyways we are too far apart in our assessments of Essendons midfield, so it’s probably better if we leave it here. We will see what happens this season.

Which teams would you say have clearly better depth than Essendon?

I also think we are lacking a bit in elite talent to really push up the ladder, but I wouldn’t say we have a lot of ‘average’ players personally.
Players like Merrett, Parish, Stringer, Ridley, Hind, Mcgrath (as a defender) could be A graders in 2022 in my opinion.
Draper could be a very good ruckman. We also have some kids that were high draft picks which will hopefully add to that list too, such as Hobbs, Perkins, Cox, Reid, Caldwell. Jones was a later pick but has a lot of talent too.
Agree that our forward line will be the mostly likely thing holding us back though.

I completely disagree,and I think it is our strongest area of the ground. I think we have great depth. Merrett, Parish, Shiel, Mcgrath probably get the most time out of our senior players. Players like Langford, Stringer, Heppell can go through there at a good level. Even Snelling played more midfield due to injuries last year and is a solid role player. Then there are the kids like Cox, Perkins, Caldwell, Hobbs etc. All high draft picks.
Looks great to me.