Anyone have any info / thoughts about him as coach?

Essendon had 85k members last year and currently over 70k this year. It is sad to see attendance fall off this year.

That win has taken a painfully difficult decision out of Matt Rosa’s hands when it comes to whether or not we should use that Pick on a Ruck named Harry Van Hattum when history strongly says otherwise. Now we no longer have to stress about that and can start looking at other high end talent around the Pick 2 range such as Arki Butler, Gus Texeira and Ethan Drever who all have explosive pace which is required is this team a lot more.

My general view of it all for a number of months is we do not legitimately need another young Ruck. We absolutely could do with a mature Ruck from another club but ultimately in terms of young Rucks we already possess both Nick Bryan and Vigo Visentini. The former is now starting to get better and develop after recovering from a long term ACL injury. He will be considerably next season with a full preseason under his belt.

There is also the history component which isn’t particularly great reading. Matthew Kruezer was the last Ruck to be taken at Pick 1 19 years ago by Carlton and while he has a pretty decent long career in the AFL that spanned 13 seasons, he didn’t exactly set the world on fire for a Pick 1. Ultimately Ruck a position much like Goalkeeper in soccer and Centre in basketball that allow other teams to do all the hard work developing and then bring over once they are mature. So for us it makes a lot more sense to try and tempt Cooper-Duff Tytler back to Victoria in a few years time just like Fremantle successfully tempted Luke Jackson back to Western Australia.

Overall any of Arki Butler, Gus Texeira or Ethan Drever would best fit this club both in terms of pure talent and the explosive pace they provide. Personally I like Butler the most because he is an absolute pest to opposition teams as medium sized high-half forward that can also play in the midfield. He is a lot more like Nate Caddy in terms of his sheer desire to want to win. But most importantly he supports and love this club. Now normally that wouldn’t be any kind of prerequisite for being drafted so high but in our case it is now something that matters than more ever with waves upon waves of players constantly leaving the club. On of that of that it is a genuine rarity to find guys his age of his generation that support and love club because most stay as far away as possible. Plus he goes nicely with both Sullivan Robey and Dyson Sharp who were also drafted as massive Bombers supporters.

Archer may, Archer day wicks, Archie Perkins , Archie Roberts, Zane Duursma is known for his archer shooting an arrow celebration, Farrow sounds like arrow, El Achkar sounds like Lebanese for ‘the archer’, We want to draft Arki butler, Artemis is a Greek goddess of the hunt who always carries a bow and arrow… Silvia is Latin for ‘Forrest’ or ‘woods’ like where a hunter would use their bow

Go Bombers!

Long time lurker, first time poster. As above, I just watched Kenny accept the job at Devils and was thinking how good if we had him in some capacity at the dons (even if not as senior coach, but as a mentor).

I’m stoked for him, I think he’ll be great for a new young team entering the comp soon.

Also, how bloody good was yesterday! Up the dons!

How concerned should we be about Tassie Potentially poaching Nic Martin, will be off contract end of 2027 and at 26 yrs of age then if Tassie threw some of their money at him seems out of reach for us to match.

Fantastic to see the boys turn it on last night. IMO Kako is one of our hardest working players every game (definitely in effort if not always stats) but the whole cohort of young fellas really shone in this game too. Go planes 🥹

Was hard to snap a pic, however, I was positioned conveniently next to Woosha/Welshy and Vozzo as they were having a coffee at 11:30am today, at an undisclosed location in Southbank.

I heard the words from the pres “looking forward to Spike this week”. Vozzo said something back, I couldn’t quite hear, but it sounded like “he’s keen”.

I know it’s not much. But I found it interesting.

Does nobody else see the goddamn gorilla in the logo or am I insane

Let's bask in this a little more on our Monday because why the bloody hell not?

So many great individual performances and moments from yesterday. Which ones did you all like most?

On an individual level, seeing Huss bring that level of defensive pressure was just so exciting. He has great goal sense and footy IQ, so if he can also bring that energy in F50 and up the ground, I can't wait to see what he and Kako do together.

Special mention to our future co-captain Duz.

On a team level, it's hard to go past the pressure. I haven't seen that in a long time. Had me ready to charge through my lounge room wall.

Go the bloody Dons, what a great sign for our future!

GET THE FUCK INNNNNNNNNNN

That win was seriously cathartic. Thinking back over the last couple of successless decades we've had some great wins here and there. 2006 breaking a 15 game winless streak by putting a belting on the lions. 2009 beating the Hawks in a winner makes the finals loser goes home round 22 clash. Beating Geelong in 2011. That first win of the 2016 top up season against Melbourne in a season we thought we wouldn't win a single game.

But today was something special, it felt more important than all of those wins. The kids seized the opportunity to step up this game and showed us there might actually be light at the end of the tunnel. Regardless of how you feel about our current and future coaching situation, you can be excited that we've got a special group of kids here. With the right leadership I believe this is the crop that can really turn us around.

This was one of the best games I think I've seen us play in forever. I don't mind that we're going to take a while to rebuild and for the talent to develop and all of it to fit neatly together. I DO mind about what the club management decides to do and hope it goes in the best direction possible.

But to focus on the footy... GOD, the fight and hunger was incredible! Beyond stats and everything, football is as much a mental game as it is physical (if not more) and the boys looked like they were out there to win from the moment the ball went up in the first quarter.

I really hope this gives them confidence. To see that winning against Melbourne wasn't a fluke... that they can repeat it in a season! Sure, you could say Stringer kicking 0.7 helped us, or this or that, but that's footy at the end of the day.

I'm yapping, but fuck I'm STOKED to be a Bombers supporter right now. Pick 1 or not, the mental effect this win has on the boys and the club is far more important, imo.

Good stuff, baby bombers! 🥹

That’s honestly all I wanted to say lol. What a tool that guy is.

Final Score - ESS: 17.11 113 COB: 8.12 60

It actually felt like a legit Essendon reserves team out there today. We had 15 AFL-listed player running around, and they put on a good show for us. This team has been putting a really strong run of form together lately, built on effort, pressure, and fast ball movement, and it's been a delight to watch. I highly recommend checking out the replay (or highlights, at least) if you've got the time.

Parish - I've got to give him a lot of credit for coming into the VFL side with a great attitude. His ball-winning ability around stoppages was obviously always going to help us out, but he also ended up with 9 tackles, which was the most pleasing aspect of his game. The extra time and space that was given to him meant that he was often able to use the ball quite well, too, so he was more damaging than we've seen in the seniors of late. What all of this means for a potential AFL recall, I don't know, but I was impressed by his game.

Tsatas - Just copy-and-paste almost every other report I've done on this bloke. Heaps of the ball, not many tackles, pretty average disposal. He did kick a couple of goals, though, which was a nice little bonus. One of them was a genuine GOTY contender. But yeah, generally speaking, his disposal was not great, and meant that he wasn't as damaging as he perhaps should have been. It wasn't a bad game by any stretch, he just let himself down a bit with those skills.

Gresham - Solid, if unspectacular. His pressure, effort and attack around the contest was quite good. He was also able to work into space to take a few marks and kicked a goal early on. Not much else to say, really. He'll probably be staying in the magoos for the rest of the year, which will be helpful for our push towards finals.

Setterfield - I just love the way he plays. He was lining up next to Tsatas and Parish in the midfield, and might have been the best of the lot. He did some great work digging the ball out to those other blokes, and won a few clearances himself. He also really put in that defensive effort that he's known for, ending with 9 tackles. Just a really strong, tough performance.

Cox - Dear dickhead coaches,

When Nik gets selected for the AFL side next week, PLAY THE CUNT IN THE FUCKING FORWARD LINE.

I'm sure most of you have heard that he tore it up this week, and yeah, he did. Kicked 7 goals, but was also absolutely robbed of a couple of shots by some poor umpiring. He was taking contested marks all over the place (including a lovely hanger on the wing early in the game), slotting set shots from everywhere, and snapping goals from general play. It really was a complete performance from him.

Visentini - Had a tough task taking on the best ruckman in the VFL at the moment, in Cooper Keogh, but he battled on respectfully. Early on, the much more experienced Keogh was definitely getting the better of Vigo, but the young fella kept his chin up and adjusted pretty well. He actually seemed to get better and better as the game wore on, and had some nice moments. Some of his tap work was quite nice, and he was taking some more marks around the ground (especially late in the game), which was pleasing to see. Keogh was probably the better of the two overall, but it was fairly close.

Jones - Played in defence again and was very quiet for much of the match. He picked things up a bit in the second half, taking some nice intercepts, but also had some god-awful turnovers. His actual defence was dicey again, too.

McKay - Back in defence, where he realistically belongs. He played a solid game, with some nice intercepts and bodied up his opponents pretty well. He made it tough for Coburg to get much going aerially inside 50, so he did his job.

Guelfi - Pretty quiet, but still did some good stuff out there. His effort and energy was there, as you'd expect, and he kicked a couple of goals early on. He copped a couple of heavy knocks, though, so ended up struggling a bit to really keep himself involved in the game at times.

Unwin - Good to see the kid back after that lengthy layoff. He spent a bunch of time on the bench, as is usual for players in his situation, but when he was on the ground, he gave us a whole lot of energy and effort. There were a couple of times where he just fought through traffic really well to set up some scoring opportunities, and his tackling pressure was a very welcome addition. It'll be interesting to see how he goes over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, time isn't on his side.

Bourke - Keeps getting the job on the opposition's best small forward. Today it was Jaidyn Stephenson (who's looking about 40 years older than I remember), and he did a reasonably well. Stephenson had a few shots on goal, but mostly from some very soft umpiring calls. Outside of that, Bourke held him pretty well, though, and did quite well to run off of him during transition. He had a couple of genuine howlers by foot, but you expect those occasionally. But yeah, mostly solid today.

Johnson - I thought he had a great outing. Ended with about 30 touches (quite a few from kick-ins), and had a few damaging runs out of D50 to set up scoring opportunities. He also had some nice little defensive efforts, which won't do his chances of a senior recall any harm. I don't think his kicking is 100% back to what it was before his foot injury, but he still had his moments. Very impressive game.

El Hawli - Had heaps of the ball and looked great... until he had to actually kick the thing... Seriously, it was tough to watch at times. He'd break through a tackle, put the foot down, then just absolutely butcher the kick. It happened way too often. That speed could be such a weapon if he could just hit a target. I think he was playing mostly wing, maybe some half back.

Nguyen - Solid game. Didn't have heaps of the footy, but the usual energy was there, and his forward pressure was reasonably good. He used his lightning feet to get us out of trouble a couple of times, and kicked himself a goal from 2 set shots. Not bad at all.

McMahon - Struggled pretty hard today. He kicked himself a goal with his first touch, but just couldn't seem to get near it after that. He did pick up a nasty little ankle injury at one point, which certainly wouldn't have helped, but he did play out the game.

I don’t usually comment on opposition club subreddit pages but I was so happy for your win! Marvellous by your boys! Hope it’s the start of something great, you guys really deserve it.