Essendon president Paul Brasher has revealed the four major themes to emerge from the club's recent review.
Speaking on SEN’s Whateley on Wednesday morning, Brasher says the review sought feedback from a sample of 40 people from the club and within the broader football business, allowing for anybody with strong views on the direction of the club to be heard.
Ultimately, Basher believes much of the feedback boiled down to four key themes.
“One of them is about the brand. We’ve been hearing a bit from outside the club anyway on what does the club stand for? What’s its brand? What’s its vision? What’s the style of play look like? How do we know what Essendon looks like on and off the field? That would be the first one,” Brasher said.
“The second would be around standards and accountabilities. If you look at what their (John Worsfold and Ben Rutten) particular styles are, there’s a spectrum that has player empowerment at one end and absolute rigid standards and accountability at the other. John’s a bit more the empowerment end whereas Ben’s more towards the standards end. We think moving forward we need much clearer standards of accountability.
“The third is around honesty and connection, and that’s the ability to give and receive constructive feedback which in turn means having relationships between all parties involved that allow them to take it and give it the way it's intended.
“And the fourth one is around player leadership and development of players. You know, not too many clubs get a Luke Hodge, but we’re looking to recruit more people with obvious leadership skills and more importantly we’ll be developing our existing players and getting them to the point of being very, very strong leaders.
Brasher reinstated his belief that if the club can achieve these four themes, the primary focus will be accomplished.
“Our number one objective is to win premierships,” Basher said.
“So if you start with that and work your way down in terms of what it means for behaviors, what it means in terms of game style, you start to get a cohesive picture that says we’re really focused on just that."