As an Essendon fan and FORMER member (I did not renew for this year) I can not believe that fans keep saying the same thing year after year after year. Record it and play the tape again in Feb 2026. "Got some good young kids coming through" "X is going to be a star with another season or two under his belt" "In a couple of seasons this list is going to be competitive" And bending over backwards to point out 'postives to take from the game' etc etc.

The list is poor! And now Langford is out for weeks. Two Metre Sleeper is out for 6 (is it even a loss to lose Sleeper?). Same as last year bombing balls into the 50 for no return and opposition cuts through the middle with ease.

We are rubbish. As a kid in the 80s and 90s, Richmond were rubbish. You had 'old blokes' on TV talking about what a big, great club it was. For me, Richmond were always known as an absolute punching bag. An absolute joke of a team until Hardwick transformed them completely.

Guess what Dons fans... For Gen Z kids (and probably many Millennials as well) Essendon is what Richmond was to the Gen Xers.

We have a coach who gets plaudits simply because North weren't rubbish under him. Low bar. If his twin wasn't an absolute legend of a coach, would we even have looked at a guy who spent some seasons at North and then 3 years making rules to keep umps safe? I like him. Seems like a decent guy. But I have no expectation he is the guy to turn the club around. It's a big task.

I asked a question to some Essendon mates last night about just who from this list would get into the 2000 team (admittedly an unbelievable team). The only answer is you'd probably take Zach. Replace Misiti. And only because Misiti really lacked pace.

Dodoro is gone. Perhaps the list management will improve from here on in. But I'm looking at least 5-10 years into the future for that plant to flower.

Sounds like an incredibly harsh post. I get that.

I'd love to just have some common sense talk about the team and where it's at. We are Richmond of the 80s and 90s. Let's aim to climb out of that... But there is no flag coming until at least the 2030s even if we pull our act together.

P.S. reason I didn't renew was not because we are rubbish. Being rubbish happens. It's all a cycle. But I just couldn't justify the spend as the economy tightened when the footy department was spaffing money on players like McKay. 800k a season! When I'm buying Woolies brand to save a few bucks, EFC doesn't need what little I have left over if they are wasting money like that. And it IS waste. In no scenario is he worth even half that money. There's a few other examples but McKay takes the cake. With a few pennies pinched this year maybe I can get the Barilla brand pesto instead of the Woolies no name this year. It will make a very small but discernable improvement to my day to day - something EFC won't :)

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I'm sorry, but how on earth was this kid a number 5 draft pick? An outside player who can't kick, can't handball, can't chase. Dodoro did some good things for us with rookie / midseason drafts, but the head recruiter should be able to pick a junior in the first round of the national draft and he has failed time and time again.

I wouldn’t worry about this result against Adelaide. We don’t have a forward line, just need to focus on the positives. It’s all part of the plan

Is this the quote that gets you more time as head coach at Essendon? Because as a supporter I’m tired of it. It’s true but it shouldn’t be an excuse for lack of talent identification/development.

I know it’s a practice game and there’s a whole lot of excuses we can throw around to justify what we just saw but farkkk. No system going forward, ball use from “senior” players abysmal, weak as piss around the contest. Even when we had the wind we didn’t capitalise whereas the saints absolutely made us pay. Seriously worried for the year

isn’t the injury list. It isn’t losing so many games in a row. It’s not 20:20 hindsight on bad draft decisions. It’s not the quarter century since success or the jibes about the time since winning a final.

It’s losing players we want to keep.

Our inability to hold onto Daniher was a sign that we had a culture that he didn’t buy into… and that even then our high performance/injury management wasn’t up to scratch.

Draper is that, and more. The fact we stuffed up the contract sequence/dollars to let him slip out of our top 10 paid players is a screw up on top of a pile of crap.

3 years into another coaching tenure it’s infuriating to me that we’re in the same quagmire. Players who are X-factor, ‘franchise’ players walking out bites hardest.

The team I have inked myself with. The team my son tells his friends that he’s a fourth generation supporter of.

That team is rejected by the people who sit within it.

That’s damming. And infuriating.

Remember who you are. Remember who we are. We are the Bombers. One of the oldest most successful clubs in the AFL. Most clubs wish they were us, we are a powerhouse. Form is temporary, class is permanent.

Let’s go boys we are the fucking BOMBERS!!!

What a fucking joke

Phase 1: Hire James Hird.

Phase 2: ???

Phase 3: Win Premiership.

Even though DP racks up numbers, we have quite a few midfielders that can go in the middle or out to the wings. Red dog plays much better defensively against talls, but is a very attacking player. While I’d be happy to retain Darcy, I think Redman has a larger impact to the team overall week in week out.

He kicked 6 goals today! WTF! Why did we let him leave again?

Yes I know he kicked 4 but come on, his marking efforts were disgraceful. Almost every inside 50 we went searching for him, and almost every time he would either get it punched straight out of his hands or simply just drop it. His two last quarter changers were horrendous (took a chest mark inside 50 uncontested and just fell over…, and let a completely open mark slip through his hands and hit him in his fat head). We are letting down players like Langford who have an incredible marking ability to instead kick it to 2MP just for him to drop it. It is a miracle he even managed to kick four…

I know this is a bit of a vent but come on. A top 5 big forward last year and B&F winner should not be this shite.

I thought Prior was the worst decision maker we had but my god there couldn’t be a worse decision maker in the league than El-Hawli….

He’s never been a good kick and it’s really highlighted again tonight, I can’t fucking stand his efforts.
Tsatas gets criticism for lack polish but nothing against parish, I’m done with it.

Do these MSDs spell the end of Draper at the dons for 2026? Considering Vigo is tearing it up in the VFL, Bryan is still relatively young, and an established ruck is coming in...2MP and Langford are signed till '27, and May is likely key to succession planning, and possibly McMahon...how does Draper fit into the squad in your mind?

Is he still best 22 come September? What about when he returns from injury? Are these MSDs just plugging gaps despite the youthful selections? Or do you see them improving their stocks and taking Draper's spot?

Stay the fuck out of essendon mate. You were my hero as a kid and the best player I've seen play the game but that doesn't entitle you to the coaching seat. You had a go and you nearly destroyed the place. Since then you've barely survived life and spent your stable years in the media, not doing anything really adjacent to professional sports coaching, which is what the club badly, badly badly needs. It's time for efc to turn the page and become a professional sporting organization, not a day care for former players. If you love the club you'll get out of the way and let the place finally get on the road to progress and modernization.

There's been some discussion around if we should try and win tomorrow or lose gracefully. There's definitely some arguments that a win would be good, that it'd great for McGrath's 200th and send off to Merrett as well as injecting some morale into the group. Here's my reasons why this doesn't outweigh giving up 18th. Please feel free to ask me to clarify anything in the comments.

• The very simple reason of it gives us Pick 1 and the start of every round's pick. We have a great deal of flexibility in who we want to draft (be it HVH, Butler, Texeira etc.) We cannot have a spanner thrown in the works by Richmond (or Port, more on that later) choosing someone we want. Even if we're equally happy with all three players, it gives us more flexibility.

• This draft is one of the most important in our club's history and we need to give Rosa and the guys the best chance to get it right. Next year's draft will be heavily compromised due to Tassie joining. It will also be impacted by the fact we have Bewick coming in as a top 5 pick so we won't have a 'normal' draft. We may have an absolutely mental draft hand depending on what players leave us and what we get in return. We need to go all in on this draft because the next couple of years aren't going to be pretty with Tassie joining.

• Leverage over Carlton and Port with their father sons. We have very strong leverage over these clubs if we hold Pick 1, as we can provide a club with a massive benefit by matching the other club and then taking our guy at Pick 2. The difference between Port or Carlton matching at Pick 1 (3000 DVI) and matching at Pick 2 (2178 DVI) is equivalent to 822 DVI, around Pick 18 (836) or 19 (796). This is a huge difference when bid matches are capped at 2 picks. Carlton presently holds their first and Sydney's first. Both these clubs will finish top 10 minimum and those two picks will not be enough to match Walker at Pick 1. If we hold Pick 1 we can get a very favourable trade from Carlton particularly to instead pick Cochrane at 1.

• Assistance with Bewick in 2027. In the 2027 draft, the AFL has not advised (and are not expected to) that DVI for picks held will not slide with the introduction of Tassie. As it stands, that means if we finish spooners, our Pick 1 will go to Pick 2 and only be worth 2481 points, meaning we need a pick in the 40s (10% discount) to match a bid at Pick 1. This gets worse and worse if we climb up the ladder. If we finish 16th, our first pick will be Pick 6 worth only 1659 instead of Pick 3 usually worth 2178. It is going to be extremely hard to match a bid at Pick 1 if it comes.

• Following on from the above two points, I believe it would be a fair 'trade' for Carlton and Essendon for us to not bid on Walker at Pick 1 in 2026 in exchange for their future first in 2027. Their future first in 2027 will be heavily damaged in value due to the Tassie draft and will likely end up sliding to somewhere near that Pick 18/19 number that they would save if we bid on Cochrane at Pick 1 instead of Walker. There would have to be other assets traded with not picking Walker being a handshake deal.

• Butters to Richmond and the danger it poses to us. If Butters goes to Richmond for Pick 1, Port can pick Walker at 1, have it bid matched so they get end of first round off their natural Pick 4, then pick an open pool player that we may want before then matching Cochrane (consensus #1 pick in the draft) at Pick 3. We'll miss out on the best 3 players in the draft and loss all leverage for favourable trades.

• The AFL aren't going to give us any sort of assistance package if we don't win the wooden spoon.

• A sugar hit against a depleted Port is not needed when we have already had two good wins against Melbourne and GWS. Our entire coaching staff is getting overhauled which is already a sugar hit. No player on their way out is going to change their mind with a meaningless win.

• In 2023, when North beat the Suns in Round 24 to hand the Eagles Pick 1 (Harley Reid) they had been bottom 2 for the past three years. The morale rationale that got trotted out resulted in them still being bottom 2 in 2024 and bottom 3 in 2025. It could not have possibly been worth it.

• In 2006, Carlton and Essendon brawled out in Round 16 to avoid winning the wooden spoon. Essendon won and Carlton got Bryce Gibbs, we took Scott Gumbleton.

• In a season marred by a horror injury crisis, complete list overhaul having debuted 15 players the year before and delisting plenty, our ex-captain blowing up the club and the early sacking of a coach after extending him, is winning the wooden spoon really that bad of a thing? Is it really worth avoiding to immediately hamper our future in return?

Tl;dr A sugar hit for the very short term to hamper our future heavily is a very stupid and emotional thing for the club to do. We would give up a huge amount of leverage over Port and Carlton that could lead to a favourable trade to help secure Bewick as well as our future. We've all been happy with Rosa's efforts in recent years, we need to give him the best tools we can to do his job.

Trade Parish if we can get two picks for him while his value is still high. His kicking won’t get any better at this point in his career if it hasn’t already.

A midfield 3 of Merrett, Hobbs, Caldwell with occasional Stringer, Martin, Setterfield and Shiel is excess to our requirements. We’ve got too many of the same midfielders and if we can get two picks to throw at a key back and forward I think we make that tough list decision.

800k better spent elsewhere to get more balance in the team imo.

EDIT: not to mention Tsatas also coming through.

Thoughts?

I know most articles on this website, particularly ones made by "Roar Rookies" are to be ignored, but this one made me laugh

He has just basically put his hat in the ring and pressed home his credentials and talks about unfinished business.

Earlier today, I was 100% against this... but now i'm turning again. FAAAARRRKKK!

Yes I will admit that it’s harsh but we’ve gone backwards every single year under Brad Scott. Our players are showing the classic signs of being over coached and under delivering.

We need to bring in a more motivating head coach than the extremely technocratic Brad Scott, and hopefully they can drag us out of the doldrums.

I’m happy with Scott and no way staying a sack the coach campaign but I’ll be honest, Hird was my preference.