{"id":283141,"date":"2025-11-14T03:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283141\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T03:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:44:13","slug":"zach-merrett-returns-to-essendon-training-after-failed-hawthorn-hawks-trade-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283141\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach Merrett returns to Essendon training after failed Hawthorn Hawks trade bid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s an image at once familiar and, in ordinary times, uninteresting \u2013 a footy club\u2019s best player returning to training. But these have not been ordinary times at Essendon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5n2j6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">After the fractiousness and rancour of Zach Merrett\u2019s unsuccessful attempt<\/a> to be traded to Hawthorn during the recent trade period, the idea of this year\u2019s Essendon captain returning to training is noteworthy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Bombers embraced Zach Merrett as he made his official return to training.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0fcdb0b363ef56e24ea65833df9d49520097b0a6.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Bombers embraced Zach Merrett as he made his official return to training.Credit: Essendon FC<\/p>\n<p>Merrett returned to the track for pre-season early on Friday morning with teammates at the club. The star onballer, who only weeks ago won his sixth best-and-fairest award at the time he was agitating to leave the club, stepped out at 7.30am with the first-to-fourth-year players for a full session at \u201cthe Hangar\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>While most of the senior players are now also back, the full list does not return to train until November 24.<\/p>\n<p>It was reported that Merrett had been a no-show <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5n308\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at teammate Andy McGrath\u2019s<\/a> off-season wedding, but McGrath had known late in the season, and well before the controversy of the end-of-season trade request, that Merrett was unable to attend as he was going to be in the US at another wedding.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Brad Scott (left) and Merrett share a laugh at the star onballer\u2019s first day back at pre-season training since his failed trade request.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/af4cf9c1832c0945e3fc68acfbbe039fd62d8671.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Brad Scott (left) and Merrett share a laugh at the star onballer\u2019s first day back at pre-season training since his failed trade request.Credit: Essendon FC<\/p>\n<p>Still, Merrett\u2019s return presented as a slightly uncomfortable moment for him, given he aggressively pushed to leave the club he has lead as captain since 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The Bombers said when Merrett asked for a trade they would almost certainly not trade him, given he had two years to run on his contract. The Hawks offered a package of three draft picks late in the trade period but could not tempt the Bombers from holding the firm line on not trading their biggest star.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Merrett wasted no time getting into the swing of things with his teammates.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/80346ecf43479212c63a936a5e862a132b49ceb4.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Merrett wasted no time getting into the swing of things with his teammates.Credit: Essendon FC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s an image at once familiar and, in ordinary times, uninteresting \u2013 a footy club\u2019s best player returning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-283141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283141","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=283141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}