emerged that the Bombers had started talks with the AFL about extra list concessions<\/a>. <\/p>\nEssendon has won just one if its past 25 games as the the club begins its search for a fourth coach this decade, facing the prospect of a second wooden spoon in 93 years.<\/p>\n
But the Dons haven\u2019t quite hit the lows of the last few clubs that received handouts from the league.<\/p>\n
Most recently, West Coast was given help after 11 wins across four seasons from 2022-25.<\/p>\n
North Melbourne received assistance after 12 wins from 84 games.<\/p>\n
And before that, Gold Coast were supplemented after 19 wins over four years.<\/p>\n
Whereas, Essendon won 11 games only two seasons ago in 2024 \u2014 a season the club sat in the top four as deep as Round 18 \u2014 and had a 6-4 record around 12 months ago before injuries hit hard.<\/p>\n
Essendon has won just one if its past 25 games (Photo by Paul Kane\/Getty Images)Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Healy ultimately believes AFL footy boss Greg Swann and the league should come up with a structured formula that would automatically trigger assistance to battling clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssendon is a bit of a complicated case,\u201d Healy told foxfooty.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of a bad run of injury and they\u2019re a level above the last few clubs that have been given extra assistance. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re far off, but they\u2019re certainly not at the Eagles, Kangaroos or Suns level just yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still think \u2018Swanny\u2019 should go to work on a method that allows the bottom clubs to get off the bottom more quickly than they are at the moment. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomething built in, rather than this bulls*** of going to get the \u2018special treatment\u2019 from the Commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cBottom line is it should be baked into the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some have argued that the Bombers should\u2019ve traded Zach Merrett last off-season if they wanted more draft picks.<\/p>\n
But Healy thinks that\u2019s an unfair stamp to put on the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could say that about every club, that you could trade away your best player and get draft picks,\u201d the AFL great added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could also argue North Melbourne should\u2019ve given away LDU (Luke Davies-Uniacke) and gotten a few draft picks. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou need some talent there to help young players come through. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey may end up getting rid of Merrett and going for assistance at the same time. And if they get rid of Merrett, they\u2019re going to need assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got a few other issues when senior players are talking about leaving. As James Hird said, the place lacks spirit and they\u2019ve got to get some spirit and confidence back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The race for Zak Butters is starting to heat up. Plus, unpacking Essendon\u2019s \u2018complicated case\u2019 for draft assistance.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[347739,114589,71972,64,63,689,24501,347742,684,347733,12923,347738,347737,347736,347734,127781,15839,347741,15832,51342,347507,31756,2105,2485,6278,47405,347735,134635,347740,48340,2522,7484,3465,116614,647,677,3473,6082,668,701,28008,672,347743,17989,1124,85,314026,3254,660,698,19121,23510],"class_list":["post-716612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ability-force","tag-agency-call","tag-assistance-package","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-bacchus-marsh","tag-battling-clubs","tag-ben-cotton","tag-budding-young-list","tag-chris-scott","tag-close-coach-player-relationship","tag-club-sat","tag-clubs-getting-assistance","tag-complicated-case","tag-draft-assets","tag-draft-assistance","tag-draft-assistance-bid","tag-draft-picks","tag-family-reasons","tag-fan-abuse","tag-gerard-healy","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-gold-coast","tag-greg-swann","tag-head-home","tag-highly-rated-draft-prospects","tag-industry-sources","tag-inside-four-club-race","tag-james-hird","tag-james-peatling","tag-ken-hinkley","tag-leigh-montagna","tag-list-concessions","tag-melbourne","tag-oceania","tag-paul-kane","tag-port-adelaide","tag-press-conference","tag-queensland","tag-quinn-rooney","tag-richmond-tigers","tag-senior-football-role","tag-senior-players","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-struggling-clubs-getting","tag-trade-saga","tag-victoria","tag-western-bulldogs","tag-young-players","tag-zak-butters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716612","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=716612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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