Ben McKay (left) and an injured Jordan Ridley leave the ground after Essendon’s practice match loss to Geelong. Photo: AFL MEDIA
Is Essendon in 2024 a team which can push for the upper echelons of the AFL ladder, or a mediocre outfit destined to dwell in the lower reaches? Who really knows? Perhaps not even the Bombers themselves.
That’s what you sense headed into Saturday afternoon’s big MCG clash with Hawthorn, a traditional rival in a traditional timeslot. Along with the suspicion we’ll know a lot more by about 4.30pm.
Bombers fans have become accustomed to an even keener sense of nervous anticipation than most rival supporters heading into the first game of the season. Because they can never be quite sure what their team is going to dish up.
Last year, they walked away happy after dismantling Hawthorn by 59 points. But the year before any optimism about the season ahead had been shattered by half-time of the first game against Geelong, the Dons walking off at the long break 10 goals in arrears and made to look second-rate by the team who’d end up premiers.
Which version of Essendon does 2024 offer? Given his comments this week, you wonder if even Bomber coach Brad Scott is too sure what may happen.
The pre-season has shed little light. The Bombers were pretty awful in their match simulation against St Kilda three weeks ago, reasonably impressive for all but the last 15 minutes in a 12-point loss at Geelong the following week.
There’s been an influx of senior-ready talent in the likes of Ben McKay, Todd Goldstein, Jade Gresham and Xavier Duursma. Injury-cursed youngsters like Zach Reid, Harry Jones and Nik Cox have actually got on the park. But the Dons’ best against the Cats were still the usual suspects like Zach Merrett, Darcy Parish, Nic Martin and Kyle Langford.
And if that meant Essendon were like 2023, could anyone even then definitively answer whether that was a good sign or not? Would that mean the Essendon which sat fifth on the ladder after 17 rounds last year, or the insipid team which lost its last two games to GWS and Collingwood by a combined 196 points?
Nor does game style offer many clues given early last year the Bombers plied a high possession more uncontested game but later on were becoming more of a contested ball team than they had been.
The expectations about Essendon in 2024 vary dramatically even among the club’s cognoscenti. Former champion spearhead Matthew Lloyd is of the “should be aiming high” school of thought.
“The way they’re recruiting and the way they’ve brought players in, that doesn’t look to me like a side to me that is saying we’re still a year or two off,” he said recently on 3AW. “The Bomber fans would nearly tear Windy Hill down if they don’t make it [finals] this year.”
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But on Wednesday, Essendon coach Brad Scott was painting a much longer-term picture not nearly so focussed on the here and now.
“We want to build a really sustainable high performing football club, and that takes time,” he said. “Supporters I talk to understand that. They don’t want short-term sugar hits and they don’t want unfulfilled promises. They want us to build a really stable solid base so that we can be a regular contender against the best teams.”
Former Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel wasn’t having that when shown Scott’s words the same evening. Was Scott attempting to give his team an “out”?
“It’s the old soft tacos and hard tacos, why can’t you have both?” he asked on Channel 9, referencing the famous TV commercial turned popular internet meme. “Why can’t you be ambitious to play finals and then (also focus on) sustained success? I don’t get: ‘If we’re no good this year its OK, because we’re aiming for eight years. I just don’t buy that.”
Nor does former Essendon defender, assistant coach and Fitzroy and Adelaide senior coach Robert Shaw.
“With (increased) focus on high performance standards, added professional staff, four hand-picked recruits to a team that was good enough to be fifth (percentage 107) in round 17, it is not unreasonable for fans to expect aspiration and expectation to mirror those standards. Gone past ‘patience’ phase,” Shaw posted on X on Wednesday.
Age and experience is a potential crutch which won’t have nearly as much credibility for the Bombers this season, either. Essendon’s age and games profiles have changed significantly from last year to this, the recruitment of that experienced quartet of players from other AFL clubs obviously a factor but not the whole explanation.
The Bombers ins 2023 had the third youngest list in the AFL and fourth least-experienced, ranked 15th for games played. But in 2024, they rank 12th in terms of age and seventh for experience. This is no longer a playing group which can dismiss its failures as a case of not having been around the block enough.
That’s another reason a game like Saturday’s against a much-younger, less-experienced and injury-afflicted Hawthorn is for most Essendon fans a non-negotiable. Win well and it won’t take a lot for the bandwagon to start picking up passengers. Lose, and rightly or wrongly, many will pronounce definitive judgement on the Dons in 2024. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
Perhaps the only certainty about Essendon on Saturday is that once again, come siren time in Roune One, either scenario is entirely conceivable.
This article first appeared at ESPN.
