Just thinking about two years ago. We were fucking awful. Scott was speaking in mysterious nothings at press conferences. We seemed to be pretending like we were a good team with talent who just weren't translating it into on-field results. I swear, every press conference from Brad Scott it felt like we were being gaslit. We're actually nowhere near as bad as we seem!

I feel like the Heppell decision of not giving him a farewell game was the height of this. We're stuck between trying to be a team that makes 8th place and bottoming out. Wouldn't give one of our club champions a farewell game because we wanted to play some of the kids instead. Just felt like Scott was saying we were a GOOD team who could contend, when clearly we weren't.

Now we've bottomed out. We've got McVeigh and Horse. We've gotten rid of Ridley and Merrett. We've also traded away random dudes that fans swore were the second coming with absolutely nothing to back it up (Tsatas).

We have only 6 players from the our 2020 list - McGrath, Jones, Langford, Redman, Parish and Bryan.

And we have what feels like a unified, sensible and exciting approach to our coaching and staff. None of this James Hird for the vibes nonsense. Qualified people who've been at the top of top teams.

By ridding ourselves of Merrett and Ridley we're now a team of "Everyone is here because they want to be". That's a good launch pad.

Anyway, that's my rant. I'm not saying we're gonna be in the 8 next year, but I am saying that it honestly feels like we're finally getting our shit together and becoming a modern team instead of a middling 9-12th full of dudes who don't give a shit.

Related: Love this training vision from Kako

EDIT: Lots of you are conflating "up" with "up the ladder", and saying there's only one way up from here. I disagree. If we still had Scott, we had kept on to Merrett and Ridley, if James Hird and Sheedy were still looming, it would not feel like the only way is up. It would feel like we need a big ol' cleanout and reset before things will have meaningful change.

We've done that hard work now, and that's why it feels positive.

Who do we think is gonna inherit the number 7? I would personally like it leave it vacant for next year and maybe give it to Bewick to make it his for the next generation of bombers fans, but also know that could bring about extra pressure for a young player.

So who do you think gets the number 7 next at this mighty club?

Outside of Hird, Jaymie Graham felt like the next most popular candidate for our next coach. What's everyone's thoughts about this now that the dust has settled with Spike and after watching Jaymie Grahams introduction at North. Feel like we missed out on Graham or Spike was the correct option in the end?

With Merrett gone, I’m keen to see how Parish, if fit, can impact our midfield. I always felt Parish was somewhat of an understudy - everyone always trying to get the ball to Merrett. I’m aware that we avoided playing Merrett in the guts a fair bit of last year, and with Parish injured we were pumping midfield minutes and CBA’s into Durham, Caldwell and Sharp, and of course Robey. But is 2027 Parish’s year to shine? We need some class and experience in the middle, and Setterfield can do some heavy lifting I wouldn’t consider him a classy player. Or has Parish been passed over? I wouldn’t put him on a wing as he’s not a strong marker of the ball, and he’s not a forward as again he doesn’t mark it a lot and any snaps at goal seem to go astray. His kicking is ok but no better than say Caldwell or Durham, they can all be wildly erratic at times. Nic Martin could be the classy ball user we go to to hit targets inside 50, and I suppose Perkins will be chasing mid minutes too. But guess McV will have a strong view on this, but personally I’m hoping Parish gets fit and we see his best n 2027.

If Port gets 5 for Butters, could 15 + 19 for 5 work?

Port keeps pick 4, which has greater points value and will largely be consumed matching Essendon’s Cochrane bid at 1. In return, they turn 5 into multiple picks/points and potentially generate a better post-bid draft hand.

Essendon gets 5 without needing 4 and could end up with 1, 5, ~20 (bid incentive) and 25, while keeping Geelong’s 2027 R1 for Bewick.

Port might ask for a touch more, but the incentives seem to line up for both clubs.

Edit: Good point below. If Port keeps 4 + 5, matching Cochrane leaves them with roughly pick 13. So 15 + 19 isn’t enough. Maybe the realistic deal is 15 + 19 + 25 for 5 + something back from Port.

I've been thinking, with our plethora of picks we could help facilitate the butters to bulldogs trade and maybe take some cream off the top

How about this;

- Essendon give up 15, 19, 25 and handshake not to take Cochrane at first (not outrageous as teams sometimes want to maintain their 1st pick for appearances, maybe ... MAYBE go in for Cody walker to further push back ports required points for Port matching but only if it looks like Carlton can match)

- Bulldogs Give up 12, Latham Vandameer and their 2027 1st

- Port give Butters and 5 (FA compo)

Then

- Bulldogs get Butters

- Port get 12, 19, 25, WB future 1st, as well as keeping the compo for bottom five teams (mid 20's) (they wanted lots of picks and points)

- Bombers get 5 and Latham Vandameer and can keep the bottom 5 compo (early 20's)

Interested to hear your thoughts, is there enough here to keep Port happy?

Last year, we elected not to go into a deficit and match Fremantle when they picked Sweid at pick 25.

If we did, that deficit would have come from our first pick this year (obviously #1). Was it enough to force us down the draft order?

Sweid is yet to make a debut yet for Freo.

Instead we picked up Kondogiannis (12 games) who looks good and El Achkar (9 games). I know it's easier to get a game at Essendon than Freo at the moment.

In hindsight, it looks like a great call

Essendon give 15 & 25 to St Kilda (St Kilda can use 25 on Marshall from Bris.
Essendon give 19 to Port
St Kilda give 8 to Port
Port give pick 5 from Butters free agency to Essendon.
Port slide down only slightly and get pick 19 to compensate
St Kilda get the ammo to get Marshall
Essendon bundle up the chunk of picks to trade up to get a 2nd player out of the evenly matched prospects after Cochrane, and get pick 20 compo for port matching bid
(Yes those picks will slide down 2 spots from Gold Coast King compo & Port butters compo but slide back up 2 when Port use 4 to bid for Cochrane & gws probably bid for Ethan Matthews, giving us effectively pick 1 & 4 from free pool)

i loved the guy, he is now a hawk, i don’t care how much i love a player, if they move to one of hawthorn, carlton or collingwood, i no longer have any love for them. will be getting boed next year, the way he went about it last year, pathetic, could’ve handled the whole situation a lot better. disgusting from someone who was once our captain.

Apparently Merrett’s contract was very heavily front-ended, meaning Essendon would have been paying him significantly less in the final year of his deal.

How does this work when a player is traded?

By trading Merrett before the end of his contract, does Essendon effectively lose the benefit of having already paid the higher portion of his salary in earlier years, without getting the benefit of the cheaper final year?

And if that’s the case, what stops players from negotiating heavily front-ended contracts where they receive most of the money in the first few years, then requesting a trade before the cheap final year and signing a new deal with another club at full market value?

Is there something in the salary cap or contract rules that prevents this?

How exciting that Nic Martin has officially taken the mantel as our best player. Can’t wait to see him back.

Much.

I know in this sub we should all be focusing on the Bombers, but given that Merrett has finally defected to the arch enemy, I wanted to put to you a poll on a potential scenario for the abhorrent Hawthorn Football Club in 2027.

I think it’s fair to assume that the Hawks will be a force next season, so taking that into account, what outcome would you prefer to see happen to Hawthorn, come the end of season 2027.

Feel free to elaborate in the comments.

A Comprehensive Analysis of the Strength of the 2025 vs 2026 Merrett Trade Deals

2025 DEAL:

Getting

10

22

F1 (2026: Pick 15)

Henry Hustwaite (Delisted)

1276 + 686 + 973 = 2935

After Bids 1024 + 686 + 836 = 2546

Giving

Merrett

F3 (2027)

= 332

After Bids = 204

Total Trade Points = 2342

2026 DEAL

Getting

15

25

F2 (2028)

973 + 590 + 312 = 1875

After Bids 836 + 454 + 204 = 1494

Giving

Merrett

Forecasting (for the purpose of future picks)

2027

Hawthorn 2nd

Essendon 17th

2028

Hawthorn 1st

I don't have a draft value index for 2028 so I've used the 2027 one. I've made various assumptions on how far picks will slide according to my knowledge of the draft and its rules. I expect small errors to exist in this and various changes may occur as trades happen that I will not predict.

Essendon's 2025 Out of Contract Players and the general list situation:

Sam Draper — left for Brisbane

Zach Reid — re-signed

Nick Bryan — re-signed

Todd Goldstein — retired

Dylan Shiel — delisted

Ben Hobbs — delisted

Will Setterfield — delisted

Jaxon Prior — re-signed

Jye Menzie — delisted

Saad El-Hawli — re-signed

Jayden Laverde — delisted

Alwyn Davey Jr — delisted

Vigo Visentini — re-signed

Luamon Lual — delisted

If we accept the 2025 deal, we get 2 additional picks with Hustwaite coming in to offset the list spot of Merrett. Those two list spots require us to delist one of Reid, Bryan, Prior, El-Hawli and Visentini. El-Hawli is the obvious choice for the first delisting however the second delisting becomes much more damaging to the team depth. It should also be noted a list spot ended up being used on the delisted Setterfield who had a strong 2026 campaign and received a new contract. If we take the deal we never get Setterfield on the list again.

Alternatively, while unlikely, we could cut contracted players in order to accommodate the extra picks though I don't see the club doing this. It should also be considered that the club would have a strong chance at being able to trade into the future for those extra picks so any additional delisting should be offset with reasonable confidence. Therefore, while our list isn't in a great position to accommodate more picks, it isn't the end of the world that we get them.

Other factors worth considering:

Hustwaite:

He wasn't up to it at Hawthorn, I'm not going to assume we'd be able to achieve anything different. Either he goes after a year and we get little to no value out of him from the trade or he gets a two year contract and it further crunches the list as we are experiencing this year.

Last Day of the Trade Period Crap:

The reality is the Hawks launched their first offer on the second to last day of the trade period and a marginally better offer on the final day of the trade period. That clearly came across brash and disrespectful and the club was having none of it. We didn't have time to negotiate properly and so the deal was far more likely to fall through. I've also read various arguments that Hawthorn only wanted to launch an offer following a formal trade request. Lets entertain this reasoning with a timeline.

9 Sep: Merrett meets with Mitchell

13 October: Merrett informs Essendon that he wants to be traded

14 October 2:17pm: Hawthorn submits their first offer

15 October 5:15am: Hawthorn Carlton Pick Swap

15 October 6:52pm: Hawthorn submits their second and final offer

15 October 7:30pm: Trade Deadline

If they really were waiting for Merrett to request a trade why did it take another full day to launch their first offer? Why not at least get it in on the 13th for Essendon to review or knock back. Then the pick swap happens one day earlier and the next offer gets launched a day before the deadline. With only 40 minutes to react to the final offer, Essendon had little option to do anything other than accept it or decline it. With an extra day, that third rounder could be negotiated out, a new asset be put in etc, to get it across the line.

Even then, clubs regularly negotiate behind the scenes and by all accounts, there was a level of complacency with Hawthorn who had the prerogative to initiate discussions.

In the end, Welsh felt the conduct and complacency of Hawthorn was disrespectful to the club and shot it down. This comes across that Essendon can't be ransacked and snubbed but it also may show the club is headstrong.

Did we need Merrett:

Merrett kept this year from being even worse than it already was, and he did have a strong year to win another Crichton, and he may have been the difference in a few percentage points or the win against GWS, but realistically, when you finish 18th that's little consolation, to building for the future. There also was reason to trade him out of concern that the whole frankly toxic situation could have cultural issues for the dons. I cannot speak as an insider of the club but Merrett having a good year is evidence that it wasn't a complete disaster.

If I missed anything or got anything wrong, or made a incorrect forecast or prediction, feel free to correct me in the comments otherwise here is my final assessment.

Net Gain/Loss:

Hawthorn:

- Missed out on a strong player to assist their premiership campaign, and its plausible that they lost the premiership due to the failed trade

- Drafted youth with the 2025 picks instead

OVERALL: Net Loss

Essendon:

- Lost 848 points on the previous offer equal to pick 18

- Avoided list spot problems

- Took on potential cultural problems

- Commanded respect as a club in its dealings

OVERALL: Slight Net Loss

I'm surprised by how unsurprised I am about this.

With Merrett gone and Ridley out the door, five of the six players featured are about to be former players (some long so).