The Age reported on Sunday<\/a> up to nine list changes were expected this off-season with the likes of Dylan Shiel and Todd Goldstein tipped to depart.<\/p>\nBefore nabbing Caddy and Kako, early drafting had been a considerable concern for the Bombers, with King\u2019s list excluding former first-round picks Ben Hobbs, Nik Cox, Elijah Tsatas and Archie Perkins. <\/p>\n
Instead, more of the Bombers\u2019 draft gems have come from later in proceedings, such as the rookie and mid-season intakes. <\/p>\n
Archie Roberts, a fourth-round pick in 2023, has been a promising revelation off half-back and should be in the prime of his career in three to five years, while Hayes was the No.25 choice in 2022 and shapes as a long-term key-position pillar. <\/p>\n
Luamon Lual was Pick 39 and Vigo Visentini a rookie draftee in 2023, while Angus Clarke and Zak Johnson \u2014 second and fifth-round picks, respectively, last year \u2014 look like handy acquisitions. Durham and Massimo D\u2019Ambrosio were mid-year pickups in years gone by. <\/p>\n
Essendon has been utterly ravaged by injury this year, with 16 unavailable names sitting on the club\u2019s injury list. It announced on Friday that high-performance boss Sean Murphy\u2019s contract wouldn\u2019t be renewed for next season. <\/p>\n
The crisis has seen the Bombers blood a record-equalling 13 debutants this season, including fielding all four of their mid-season draftees in Thursday night\u2019s loss to GWS \u2014 Archer May (Pick 6), Lachie Blakiston (Pick 13), Oskar Smartt (Pick 17), and Liam McMahon (Pick 18) \u2014 amid a seven-game losing streak. <\/p>\n
Scott praises ex-Don Stringer after loss | 12:54<\/p>\n
FREO DOES IT AGAIN… THE THING EVERYONE SAID THEY COULDN\u2019T DO<\/p>\n
Last season, when the Dockers fell apart and everyone was looking for a diagnosis, many stumbled upon that old favourite – \u2018they can\u2019t win close games\u2019.<\/p>\n
And to be fair, last season, the Dockers didn\u2019t win close games. Other than the one-point win over Sydney, in which the Swans\u2019 Logan McDonald missed after the siren, they went 1-5 with a draw in games decided by two goals or less.<\/p>\n
Most notably, in their four losses to end the season, Fremantle lost by 1 point, 11 points, 9 points and 20 points. So it was easy to say \u2018well, they can\u2019t win the close ones, not like some teams… you know, like Collingwood!\u2019.<\/p>\n
Ahem. Sunday afternoon, anyone?<\/p>\n
The kings of the close game, Collingwood, allowed Fremantle to storm back from nearly four goals down and pinch a one-point thriller at the MCG. Basically, the roles were reversed. Fremantle did a Collingwood and Collingwood did a Fremantle.<\/p>\n
And in fact, they\u2019ve switched roles all season. The Dockers are 5-3 in games decided by two goals or less and, specifically, they keep beating top teams in close games – add Collingwood by 1 to a list including Gold Coast by 11, Hawthorn by 13, the Bulldogs by 16 and Adelaide by 18.<\/p>\n
Is this the best version of Freo? | 02:34<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the Magpies are 3-3 in close games – regressing to the mean – with losses to Fremantle by 1, Geelong by 3 and Gold Coast by 6.<\/p>\n
In fact Craig McRae\u2019s men have now lost three of their last four games decided by a kick.<\/p>\n
So have they lost their skills? Lost their magic? Lost their way? Nope. They\u2019ve just lost a few close games. It happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cManaging those moments will be forever something we need to do. And you know, if the scoreboardsis an indication we haven\u2019t managed it well enough,\u201d McRae said post-game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve lost three close games this year, won against the Cats and those two. Have we lost our spark? You\u2019d hope not. But reality is, we\u2019ll keep getting better at it. I thought last week, when we went into the had to win the game phase, it looked pretty good for us. Come from a big margin down, and we hit the front. So I think that\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the desperation and excitement for late in the game, you have a look at some of those contests where, you know, the ball\u2019s spilling out. I thought we did a lot of the things right.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d argue defensively, we didn\u2019t do the same. Rather learn these lessons now.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being an absurd outlier across the 2022-23 seasons, the Magpies have played 17 close games across 2024-25. They\u2019ve won nine of them. They are behaving like a normal team.<\/p>\n
Just like the Dockers are. They\u2019ve won a couple more close games than they\u2019ve lost this year, but it\u2019s close enough to even that they\u2019re not an outlier. And almost every team will finish roughly close to even across every season.<\/p>\n
So this is just a reminder not to jump at shadows, or to desperately try and find a narrative that doesn\u2019t exist. We see a series of results and we want an explanation because we\u2019re humans, and we love finding patterns even when they don\u2019t exist; sometimes, things just happen.<\/p>\n
‘Grity’ & ‘brave’ Freo win over Pies | 12:27<\/p>\n
DOGS CONCERNS OVER \u2018STARS AT THE TOP\u2019… THEN WHAT?<\/p>\n
Marcus Bontempelli. Ed Richards. Sam Darcy. Tom Liberatore. Tim English. Bailey Dale.<\/p>\n
The Dogs have some of, if not the, most elite top-end talent in the AFL. But is it the Dogs\u2019 second-tier, and more specially, their youth, that\u2019s currently holding them back from being a bona fide premiership contender? <\/p>\n
Friday night\u2019s loss to Brisbane saw the Dogs fell to 1-8 against top eight teams this season in a record widely seen as their biggest flaw despite being viewed by some as a premiership dark horse. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like Luke Beveridge\u2019s side has been embarrassed by the best teams. But until the Dogs can show it can beat them, it\u2019s hard to take them too seriously in the premiership race. <\/p>\n
They still need to qualify for finals yet, with the potential for the 10-8 Dogs to be two games outside the top eight by the end of the round, pending on other results. <\/p>\n
But for all their starpower, it takes a full contribution across the board to get success amid concerns around the experience of the depth players in Beveridge\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been a top eight team for a lot of the year \u2026 (but) there\u2019s a bit of work to do,\u201d Collingwood great Nathan Buckley said of the Dogs on Friday night. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe scoreboard shows that there\u2019s not much of a gap, but it\u2019s a big jump from where they are, to where they want to be \u2014 a top four team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve still got a lot of young blokes running around; they had nine under 50 games (on Friday night).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got the stars at the top, but they\u2019ve still got a lot of players in that team that are going to take some time. And they may not be the ones that take them forward to become a top four team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bevo reflects on another top 8 loss | 08:08<\/p>\n
Lachie Bramble, Sam Davidson, Ryley Sanders, Joel Freijah, James O\u2019Donnell, Luke Cleary, Riley Garcia, Lachie McNeil and Caleb Poulter were the Dogs with under 50 games experience to take the field against Brisbane. <\/p>\n
Dual All-Australian Leigh Montagna last week put a line through the Dogs\u2019 flag hopes, but was optimistic about their 2026 prospects given the glut of youth being exposed to AFL level compared to other contenders. <\/p>\n
While getting experience into young players doesn\u2019t guarantee they\u2019ll improve \u2014 both as individuals and as a collective \u2014 the Dogs are in many ways on two timelines.<\/p>\n
Sure, that holds the Dogs in good stead long term, but it\u2019s perhaps why it\u2019s hard to fully invest in them this year, compared to other teams with core groups who have played a stack of games together. <\/p>\n
The Dogs still have their own core of stars, but the players around them on the edges have changed dramatically over the last couple of years as part of a recalibration of the list. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s small margins. (The Dogs lost to Adelaide by) 11 points last week, 10 points this week \u2014 sometimes it comes down to moments in the game and in fourth quarters. With inexperience, it\u2019s sometimes hard to manage the game for 120 minutes,\u201d four-time premiership Hawk Jordan Lewis added.<\/p>\n
Buckley had faith that Beveridge had all the tools to get the best out of this side in his bid to guide he club to a second premiership. <\/p>\n
\u201cSitting in his (Beveridge\u2019s) chair though, the competitive and never-give-in attitude \u2014 that\u2019s an absolute prerequisite to become the team that you want to be,\u201d the ex-Magpies coach said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd to bridge whatever gap there is between where you are and the best team; if you\u2019re not the best team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Essendon plummets ever lower, one expert believes just 13 current Bombers can be part of their next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-9204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9204","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=9204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}