{"id":132010,"date":"2025-09-10T05:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/132010\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T05:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:19:07","slug":"essendon-captain-zach-merrett-meets-with-hawthorn-coach-sam-mitchell-ahead-of-trade-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/132010\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon captain Zach Merrett meets with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell ahead of trade period"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Zach Merrett has met with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell as the Essendon captain explores his AFL trade options.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Merrett and Mitchell met on Tuesday night in the wake of another disastrous season for the Bombers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The star on-baller is the biggest name among several players who could leave the club.<\/p>\n<p>Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Ruckman Sam Draper has confirmed he will head to Brisbane as a free agent and defender Jordan Ridley also is said to be keen to join the Lions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mitchell was coy at his pre-training media conference on Thursday morning when asked about their interest in Merrett.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure \u2014 you&#8217;d have to talk to the list management guys about that,&#8221; Mitchell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;I hope they are working behind the scenes on improving our list. That&#8217;s what their job is and I hope they are going about that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-07-17\/afl-essendon-bombers-injury-crisis-explainer-physiotherapy\/105533646\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">As Bombers battle injury bug, these silent factors lead to athletes getting hurt<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Essendon has been hit with an injury toll that has rarely been seen in professional sports. ABC Sport spoke to a physiotherapist to help gain an understanding of the various factors that result in professional athletes getting hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Within seconds of the media conference ending, the Nine Network reported that he had met with Merrett.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Gold Coast&#8217;s elimination final win over Fremantle last weekend has added further emphasis to the lack of September success at Essendon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">They now have the longest stretch without a finals win, dating back to 2004.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">It is understood Merrett&#8217;s primary motivation for leaving the Bombers is to play in a premiership team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mitchell also met earlier this year with West Coast co-captain Oscar Allen, who since has decided he wants to join Brisbane as a free agent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Merrett has met with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell as the Essendon captain explores his AFL trade options.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[638,64,63,9659,3181,3028,6854,9568,12936,588,85,25581],"class_list":{"0":"post-132010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-captain","12":"tag-coach","13":"tag-essendon","14":"tag-hawthorn","15":"tag-meeting","16":"tag-sam-mitchell","17":"tag-sport","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-zach-merrett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}