Essendon announced a five-year plan at the club’s annual general meeting on Wednesday, outlining their ambitions to win a 17th premiership.
The Bombers are aiming to win a flag and grow its membership base to 125,000 in the next five years.
Essendon isn’t the only club to have unveiled a strategic plan in recent times.
Fremantle is aiming to win its first premiership inside the next four seasons while Port Adelaide’s ‘Chasing Greatness’ plan includes three premierships in the next five years as well as increasing their membership tally to 100,000.
Richmond CEO Brendon Gale famously explained their 10-year ‘Winning Together’ vision on Footy Classified that ultimately came to fruition as the Tigers went on to win three premierships in four years.
Power champion Kane Cornes is of the view that clubs should keep their internal targets and objectives “in-house”.
“This isn’t criticism of Essendon specifically because my club (Port Adelaide) did it, they created a plan ‘Creating Greatness’ and they’re all similar,” Cornes told SEN Breakfast.
“I think the positivity around Essendon is justified. I was really impressed by what they did last year. I’ve been impressed by how bold they’ve been with their list. They clearly have a plan and have identified that they need draft picks – and they’ve picked the right players. That’s the hardest thing.
“Every Essendon fan is going, ‘Who knows? If things go well this year, we may be able to compete’. But they haven’t won a final since 2004, so I would be going with smaller goals.
Stay up to date with all the latest news from SEN. Sign up HERE.
“I just think this sort of stuff can come back to bite you and that’s across the competition. We’re too much of a copy-cat league.
“If Richmond do it and Brendon Gale sits on Footy Classified and he’s laughed and ridiculed for the plan that he created, but then he looks like a genius some years later when he pulls it off everyone thinks, ‘If Richmond did that and that was pretty ambitious, we’re going to do the same thing’ – everyone copies everyone, do it your own way, keep these things in-house.
“There is only one thing that this plan is going to do and that’s going to come back to haunt Essendon. What’s there to gain?
“Once again, this isn’t an Essendon thing because 90 per cent of the clubs do it. I just don’t see the benefit behind it.”
Dyson Heppell will captain Essendon for a sixth season as the club celebrates its 150th-year anniversary in 2022.