Is The Essendon Bandwagon Out Of Control?
Mar 17, 2022, 1:48AM
A young group with plenty of midfield talent and a few highly rated picks in recent seasons, Essendon sneaking into the top 8 in 2021 was a fantastic story, particularly for first-year coach Ben Rutten.
The excitement was warranted as many fans got swept away in the narrative and offensive numbers of the group – they finished the home-and-away season scoring the fourth-most points of any club in the competition (88.77 per game), conjuring a relatively impressive 109.1% in the process.
Darcy Parish was a breakout star, polling 26 Brownlow votes and his first All-Australian jacket. Zach Merrett polled 20 votes for his second All-Australian jacket while Jake Stringer and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti kicked 74 goals between them. As a team, their 75% disposal efficient led the competition.
With the level of talent aged 23 or younger, there’s reason to believe the Bombers will be winning finals in the near future and become a regular top-four contender when the players hit their straps.
It’s just, 2022 isn’t that season.
Punters- At TopSport, the Bombers are paying $2.15 to make finals for a second-straight season.
A lot went right for Essendon to stumble their way into a finals position and the reality check they were served by the eventual runners-up in the Elimination Final was severe.
They only conceded the 10th-most points in the league which is indicative of an improved effort overall by a makeshift defence, but drill down and the overall records isn’t that flash.
Against finalists in the season proper, the Bombers finished with 1 win and 8 losses and a percentage of 79.07. They averaged 73.44 points in these matches and had, on average, 5.6 less scoring shots per game than the opposition.
Sure, there were some impressive performances, namely a win against the Bulldogs and close contests against the Demons and Swans, but the way in which the draw opened up and the season standings ended up settling, Essendon had a pretty good run all things considered.
Defensively, they haven’t taken any huge strides forward to indicate that there’ll be an overly different defensive structure to what they used in 2021.
The addition of Jake Kelly is nice and helps occupy the most dangerous mid-sized forward, hopefully allowing Jordan Ridley to get back to his purer intercepting days, but relying on James Stewart and Jayden Laverde once again seems fraught with danger.
Punters- A first Essendon premiership in 22 years? At TopSport they're paying $17 for that to transpire in 2022.
Essendon performed at the very least valiantly and, at best, decently at times last season. Still, the numbers indicate that Essendon’s defence conceded goals when the opposition entered their forward 50 at a rate on par with Hawthorn and leakier than teams like Gold Coast, Collingwood, Adelaide and St Kilda.
In attack, it seemed as though the club directive was to run fast and lock the ball in. Plenty was made of a Richmond-style approach with small forwards able to run into space and to apply the tackling pressure that restricts the opposition’s ball movement, but the Bombers were the third-worst team for tackles inside 50.
Will Snelling was the natural leader in the statistic, averaging 1.5 game, but he does his best work as a high half-forward applying pressure around clearance situations. McDonald-Tipungwuti was ranked second and his absence will surely be felt for as much time as he needs for his own personal reasons.
When Cale Hooker is ranked third in tackles inside 50, it’s clear that this area isn’t a strength and for it to be as important as it should be in defending transitional play, the Bombers simply need extreme improvement out of the like of Devon Smith, Archie Perkins and perhaps the reinvented Matt Guelfi in attack.
Essendon’s uncontested possession numbers ranked third in the competition which, mixed in with the highest disposal efficiency and ranking fifth for inside 50s per game, highlighted a level of efficient ball movement that almost flies in the face of the makeup of the squad.
Clearly, the manic “get the ball forward” approach of the Bombers worked superbly when the team looked unstoppable. Nick Hind and Dyson Heppell controlled a half-back line that could both hit up shorter targets and run the ball out of defence, and the work ethic of perceived inside midfielders would create central space for Essendon.
Punters- At TopSport, 2021 First-round pick Ben Hobbs is paying $21 to win the clubs' third-ever Rising Star award this season.
Dive a little deeper however and we can see that in the 9 games Essendon played against top 8 teams, they won the uncontested possession count just twice and operated at a better disposal efficiency just four times.
Playing teams that could fall apart when faced with pace and slick ball movement was a blessing and the fact the draw opened up really improved Essendon’s final standings in key categories.
Ultimately though, these are perhaps misleading and looking at clearances and tackles, ranked 10th and 8th respectively, perhaps better encapsulates how the Bombers perform in the clinches, when the ball is there to truly be won.
Work ethic and the fitness base of this group was a key factor in dominating against teams the Bombers flew past in 2021 and keeping them within touching distance of some of the very best teams in the competition, however with a full season and two preseasons under the belt in this new COVID world, it’s hard to imagine Essendon continuing to separate themselves from other teams.
The ball movement became safe against the top teams and the reliance on the midfield to both win the ball and spread hard to create space for the forwards was overly demanding, yet often necessary with the lack of focal points in attack.
Part of creating a winning culture is the buy-in, of which Essendon has plenty, but also positional depth, in which the Bombers struggle.
Peter Wright remains the one constant in a rotating attack that will feature Harrison Jones, Kaine Baldwin and even Aaron Francis, all of whom are injury risks and most certainly have a lot to prove.
The smalls aren’t prolific in front of goal without McDonald-Tipungwuti around and if Stringer is wanted as the x-factor player with his history of injury, the Bombers will be needing 50+ goals out of him.
Defensively, Laverde and Stewart need to back up their extremely unexpected seasons to a higher level and meet new expectations, or Brandon Zerk-Thatcher needs to get stronger with Zach Reid or Michael Hurley around.
To make finals again, Essendon needs to match extremely efficient highs that got them to a top eight spot in the first place, and history suggests the relying on efficiency in an unproven team is simply unsustainable.
With some injury luck to key position personnel, this is a group that can become a contender in 2023 and beyond, particularly having had another season under Ben Rutten.
In the meantime though, Essendon’s prospects seem to be in the range of teams finishing a game or two outside of finals while they still try and nail their style and identity.
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