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Horsburgh wants lift
4:23:27 PM Sat 23 September, 2006
Sportal for afl.com.au
New Essendon president Ray Horsburgh says he has already identified areas of the club he believes need immediate improvement if the Bombers are to return to the AFL's upper echelon.

Having risen to the top job this week - in place of the outgoing Neil McKissock - just three years after joining the club's board, Horsburgh told 3AW on Saturday that he is unimpressed by the fact that Essendon trails plenty of its rivals in football expenditure.

Horsburgh says the fact that the Bombers are one of the wealthier clubs in the competition but managed just three-and-a-half wins in 2006 is disappointing and something that must be rectified.

"We've just done a fair bit of analysis, we've called it our 'Year 2010 Plan' … when we've done that analysis we're only sixth in spending on recruiting, well that's not good enough," he said.

"We're going to declare a profit well north of $1 million this year and we've got $6 million of investments and success is only counted on how many games you win, not how much money you've got in the bank."


"Certainly our Year 2010 Plan involves extra expenditure in recruiting, I don't want to see us ranking sixth in recruiting, we ought to know about every good young player in the country and we're going to put people on that will enable us to do that."

Horsburgh also stated that it is unacceptable that the Bombers have 'gone backwards each year for the last three years', which is a 'huge concern' for the board, even if he believes there have been reasons for the slide.

"Well there's never any joy in finishing there and it's something the Essendon Football Club doesn't enjoy," he said. But we probably didn't have good recruiting back in 2001 and 2000."

"We've finished around that fifth and sixth where we didn't get the opportunity to get early draft picks and we had a lot of injuries this year. I know they're always excuses but we lost Lloydy (Matthew Lloyd) and Hirdy (James Hird) didn't play too many games and we had a lot of other blokes that played with injuries."

"We lost seven games by 13 points or less which is not an excuse but probably not as bad as a second-bottom team. We've got a lot of work to do to get up the ladder just the same."

Chief executive of the Smorgon Steel Group for the past 12 years, Horsburgh is also excited by the early role the Bombers will play in this year's NAB AFL National Draft.

"We've got an opportunity this year, which is probably the best opportunity we've had for a decade, to get three early draft picks," he said. "I hope our recruiting people are working 15 hours a day, we can't mess this up."

Pressed about the future of coach Kevin Sheedy beyond 2007, when his current contract is due to expire, Horsburgh refused to commit the club to either retaining Sheedy or dispensing with his services after an association that began in 1981.

"Essendon will have to make that decision but it's not one we're going to be making in the near future," he said. "Kevin, like all of us, wants success and he's got a proven track record of building a list and being successful and the next year will tell us how he goes."

"It's something that we haven't discussed to be honest. The board will make that decision as the year progresses."

Having played more than 100 games for Seddon in the Footscray District League, and also represented both the South Melbourne Under-19s and Williamstown in the old VFA, Horsburgh couldn't resist a dig at Carlton, where Smorgon Steel chairman Graham Smorgon is president.

"Well Graham's been my chairman ever since I've been at Smorgon and Graham's actually a very good chairman and he doesn't in any way interfere with how I run the company," he said.

"I guess the difference is we've got a very good, experienced professional board at Smorgons."