03 September 2006 Sunday Herald Sun
JUST because the siren has sounded on what has been a disappointing season for Essendon, our year is far from over.
This was our second poor year in a row, but in introducing a lot of kids and giving ourselves a chance to draft and trade well in the coming months, we are bullish about next year's prospects.
The last thing we wanted this year was to be uncompetitive and lose a lot of games -- there is no excuse for that.
But now we need look back and think about the gains we have made, despite finishing near the bottom of the ladder.
It is so important for the younger players to experience games. At Essendon we see an apprenticeship as lasting 50 games. A lot of our younger players have just passed that milestone or are quickly approaching it.
Players such as Lovett Murray and Stanton pushed past 50 and developed as players. The next lot, including Bradley, Reynolds, Dyson, Lovett, Monfries, Watson, Winderlich and Laycock, are all close.
That doesn't guarantee they will be stars, but if you can support them with excellent senior performers they can go a long way next year.
Others got a sniff, too -- Dempsey, Slattery, Johns, Cartledge and Lee.
It's not sexy to sell how many developing players are in your system, but the footy community has acclaimed how Adelaide and Melbourne's kids came through this year. They didn't just bob up from nowhere.
We lost about eight or nine games by between one and three goals -- and that hurts. But we have also allowed some massive starts to sides such as the Bulldogs and Hawthorn in recent weeks.
This is just not good enough, so we don't kid ourselves about how much work we have to do.
We have to get our attitude spot-on and we hope to do that in what will be a particularly tough pre-season.
While the players are resting before that, we will be working feverishly on the approaching trade and drafting decisions.
We would like to get Jason Akermanis, but not at any price.
We will be keeping our top-three picks in the draft, unless something unexpected happens between now and trade time.
Last year we got a first-round pick when Ted Richards left, so you don't know if you can snare another high pick. We would need to look at what Brisbane want for Akermanis. We have dealt with the Lions before, so the lines of communication are open.
There will be at least 25 very good players in the draft. It's up to our recruiting guys to make sure they get the menu right.
We won't decide on whether we take a midfielder or tall with our first pick until the trade period is over, but recruiting is the main mission for us in the next few months.
I will be heavily involved, alongside our recruiting manager Adrian Dodoro(with JohnG's help, no doubt!!
)as we do a lot of work watching games, analysing options and talking to a lot of people There is a lot of work to be done, but we believe we have laid the foundations.
I am sure we will end up with a pretty good team for our Bomber fans next year.
