Equipped with five picks inside the top 30 of this year’s National Draft, Essendon is presented with a slew of options at the trade table this year.

With the Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period officially kicking off on Monday, the Bombers were flagged as the nominated Club for departing SUN Brayden Fiorini in a good start to the window. 

Approaching a busy month of talent acquisition, the Dons’ GM – List and Recruiting Matt Rosa joined Gettable to discuss the Club’s strategy over this period, including trade targets and their opportunities to move up the draft order.

Rosa on… the state of trade

It is great Brayden (Fiorini) has nominated Essendon. 

We see a clear role there on the wing, it’s a role-specific target we were after. It’s a total package with Brayden, he’s got great leadership, high end character and footy IQ. We will work with Gold Coast to facilitate a fair trade.

There’s no doubt he’ll complement our mix.

(Zane Duursma moving) looks unlikely, we do like his talent but we understand they’ve invested a lot in him, he’s under contract. Naturally, with the connection to Xavier there’s been a bit of noise around that, but we expect him to be at North Melbourne.

Rosa on… potential moves up the draft order

We are really excited about the hand we have as it provides us flexibility.

We’ll continue working on if we can get up the draft order, options moving into next year as well. We’re certainly really comfortable with the players that’ll be there at the pointy end of the draft.

Ranking order of priority, No.1 would be to get up in this draft if we can, but we’ll explore all options. We’ve let Richmond and West Coast know we’d be keen to explore moving up. If we feel there can be a win-win, we’ll look at that.

It’s a range of 10 to 15 players we are still considering for those early picks. The calibre of characters and the talent you know is going to be coming through your door, it is really exciting for our football club.

We were always comfortable with that deal (the pick trade with the Demons last year), regardless if it was a pick five or a pick outside of 10, that was a win-win for both us and Melbourne.

We both achieved a result out of that. 

Rosa on… the state of the list, our ruck depth, out-of-contract players

We have real confidence in our core group, there’s a lot of good players in there, they just haven’t been able to play together enough. 

We are really bullish our 23 will be more experienced next year and we will always look to add character and leadership if it feels like the right fit. 

We are comfortable (with our ruck mix). We thought Nick Bryan started the year really well and we’re bullish he’ll be back in the early stages of next season.

We brought Lachie Blakiston in through the mid-season draft – unfortunately, with our injuries he had to go and play as a key back – which was great to see how well he adapted to that role that he’d never played in his life. 

If you saw his last quarter against the SUNS in the last game, he played in the ruck and showed his athleticism, that’s his natural position.

Another big summer into Vigo Visentini and we think he’ll jump again, so we’re comfortable with where we sit knowing we’ve also got Peter Wright there as backup if needed.

Our uncontracted players are (having to wait until after the Trade Period) and that’s the unfortunate nature of this year that there are a few boys on hold. 

We’ll just need to work out where it sits for us from a list spots point of view, we’ll work through what to do with our picks.

Rosa on… attracting high-end talent, future drafts 

We will always be looking to bring in high-end talent.

We are keen to go to the draft again this year, we’ll still stay open to young talent if they’re A-grade but we feel like our last couple of drafts have been really good and we’re really excited to attack this one as well.

There’s no doubt we will be aggressive moving forward with bringing in high-end talent. 

With the young talent we’re gathering and our strong core staying out on the park a lot more, we’ll be an attractive place to be.

There’s no doubt the draft will be compromised moving forward (with Tasmania’s picks), so it is a good time to get young talent in. 

We’re always looking ahead to a couple of years and we’ll do a lot of planning now that we’ve got a line of sight on how it will look.

Rosa on… Zach Merrett 

Nothing has changed there. 

We’ve been really clear how important Zach is to us, he’s super valuable for our Club. No trade request from Zach. We are aware he is in a hurry, he’s the ultimate competitor, but he has been clear and his management have been very clear he believes the direction the club is on.

He really believes in the young talent we’ve got coming through – we will continue discussions with Zach.

There has been good two-way communication. We know there’s some frustrations there, but he believes in the young fellas and the football club. We see him as an Essendon player moving forward and will continue playing great football for the club.

Rosa on… NGA prospects

We’ve spoken to both (Huss El Achkar and Adam Sweid) and sat down with their families, we really like them as players but we need to see where our picks sit, there’s still a lot to play out there and they’re aware of that. 

They’ve both had fantastic seasons and we’re really proud of the NGA program we’re running at the football club, led by Marty Allison – we’ve seen talent come through in past years and we feel like we’ve got a lot more coming through. 

We’re giving these players the best opportunity to make it to the highest level.

(Koby Bewick) is a talent, we really like him. We’re aware we’ve got some good players coming through our father-son program, there’s still a lot to play out to see exactly where he sits in a couple of years’ time.