Essendon tragic and SEN’s own Julian De Stoop has run through the top five reasons as to why his club hasn’t won a final since 2004.
This week marked 20 years since the Bombers last won a final, with the 2024 season fizzling out and the side missing the eight once again.
De Stoop, speaking on SEN’s The Run Home, ran through what he believes to be five main reasons for their lack of success since then.
You can probably guess number one…
1. The supplement saga
“They had a young spine of Michael Hurley, Cale Hooker, Paddy Ryder, Jake Carlisle and Joe Daniher. They had Jobe Watson and Brendon Goddard in their prime, they had David Zaharakis, Dyson Heppell, Michael Hibberd, Jake Melksham, Stewart Crameri as young players. They were building a really good list,” De Stoop said.
“They were building a team that could’ve been a top four team. Obviously that all got gutted.”
2. The appointment of Matthew Knights as coach
“They appointed Knights instead of Damien Hardwick. That was a mistake. No doubt about it.”
3. The Ben Rutten succession plan
“More the fact that it was Ben so much, but the fact that they decided on a succession plan without testing the market.”
“They could have got an Adam Kingsley or a Justin Longmuir or a Craig McRae, but they decided Ben was the man – he lasted two years, so it wasn’t the right call.”
4. The 2017 trade period
“They fell for the old trick of thinking they were closer than they were. They traded away the next two first-round draft picks to bring in Jake Stringer, Devon Smith, Adam Saad and Dylan Shiel.”
“Now, Stringer has been pretty good. Smith won a best and fairest and then his knee blew up. Saad was good until he walked out and Shiel has been a bust for two first-round picks.
“Some at the club wanted to hit the draft. Others wanted to bring in established talent, and it didn’t work.
“You can bring in established talent if you’re not far away, but that team was far away.”
5. Poor drafting post 2000
“Straight after 2000 they lost their way. Poor drafting and poor recruiting from other clubs and poor salary cap management.”
“They lost Hardwick, Caracella, Blumfield and Heffernan. They brought in players from other clubs in Camporeale, Murphy and Allen for example – none were any good at Essendon.
“Plus they missed out on early draft picks from 2000 to 2003. These were their first round draft picks – James Davies, Shane Harvey, Jason Laycock, Jason Winderlich was a good player, but had injuries, Kepler Bradley and Brent Stanton who was a good pick.
“They missed four out of six. That hurts.”
Listen to the full chat below
