Essendon duo Mason Redman and Nic Martin on Thursday spoke on record about their disappointment<\/a> with the situation after CEO Craig Vozzo suggested earlier this week Merrett\u2019s teammates would have the most \u201ccritical\u201d say on a possible trade and that \u201cbridges need to be mended\u201d between the two parties.<\/p>\nBombers coach Brad Scott also said on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360 he expected Merrett to see through his contract until 2027 after the club raised his salary twice over the past three seasons.<\/p>\n
Mitchell coy over Merrett meeting | 00:56<\/p>\n
Morris believes the main reason for Merrett wanting to move to another club is to chase success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real reason is exactly what (SEN journalist) Sam Edmund said the other night when he spoke to (Merrett\u2019s) manager (Tom Petroro from TGI Sport),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe feels like the runway is too short for success at Essendon. It\u2019s too hard for him to be in a successful team now, given he turns 30 in a couple of weeks time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to play in a successful side that can play finals and maybe win a flag. He\u2019s been (at Essendon) for 12 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s not about money, it\u2019s purely about success and about winning. And he\u2019s to blow up to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how does Hawthorn \u2014 or another club \u2014 get a deal done?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what sort of trade can satisfy Essendon for Zach Merrett. But I\u2019d imagine the starting point would be two first rounders \u2014 one this year, one next year and they\u2019d probably want more as well,\u201d Morris continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at all the players coming out now speaking about the Merrett situation, look at Brad Scott and Craig Vozzo speak about the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is becoming a really ugly war between the captain and an all-time great of the club, who\u2019s about to win his sixth best and fairest, and one of the biggest football clubs in the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to watch it unfold.\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes ahead of an eventful off-season for the Bombers regarding player movement, with Sam Draper to depart in free agency and Jordan Ridley also reportedly seeking a trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what\u2019s important to note with this is he\u2019s a deep thinking, competitive, really driven sort of guy,\u201d Morris added of Merrett.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way he\u2019s doing this and is adamant he needs to get out, without understanding the ramifications behind it. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe would know his reputation is being put through the mud. He would know if he happens to stay, he would lose the captaincy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what does that say about much how wants to get out and about the Essendon Football Club?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you compare him and Jordan Ridley \u2014 two of the most professional players at the club who both want to leave \u2014 I think that reflects really poorly on the Bombers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon president Dave Barham has hit back at claims Zach Merrett\u2019s future is \u201conly going one way\u201d as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,94516,696,11231,1127,2105,94521,42251,33330,36877,647,94518,3032,677,94515,672,94520,12936,94517,85,1144,94519,660],"class_list":["post-137396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-bombshell-trade","tag-brad-scott","tag-essendon-bombers","tag-fox-footy","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-gun-on-baller","tag-hawks-coach","tag-josh-chadwick","tag-mason-redman","tag-melbourne","tag-merrett-hawks","tag-nic-martin","tag-oceania","tag-professional-players","tag-richmond-tigers","tag-rumours-whispers","tag-sam-mitchell","tag-skipper-pushes","tag-sports","tag-tom-morris","tag-ugly-war","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137396","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=137396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}