So apparently this month is my 20 year anniversary on this forum. How many years have I spent/wasted discussing and arguing with people on this forum???
I want to revisit the year 2006, where I was a fresh face uni student who had just moved to Melbourne for the first time, and signed up for my first membership. I was all in on the new direction of this club, with Kevin Sheedy leading a group of gun young kids in Paddy Ryder, Courtney Dempsey, Angus Monfries, Brent Stanton, Kepler Bradley, Jason Laycock and Jason Winderlich.
And lead by the Premiership superstars of James Hird, Matthew LLoyd, Dustin Fletcher, Jason Johnson, Scott Lucas, Mark Johnson and Dean Rioli.
So young, so naive. I honestly believed the club is on the doorstep of another Premiership. And then the hope was drained gradually across a 20 year period.
The interesting thing about this period, was that we considered the likes of Lloyd, Lucas, Johnson, Rioli, to be ‘old players’ these guys were still in their prime at 28 years old. Dustin Fletcher at 30 and James Hird at 33.
And yet most of these guys fell away very quickly in their performances (Fletcher and Hird the exception). The young kids never came on.
The disaster of this season was when Lloyd, who was in career best form, having kicked 13 goals in his first 3 games, launch at a ball on the lead and tore his hamstring off the bone. The silence around Docklands stadium was eerie. And we never got to see the best of Lloyd again.
From there, the season went down tge drain and eventually finished 2nd last on the ladder. And hoping to lose a majority of games so we could get a priority pick.
We went to the draft, and picked up superstar gun key forward Scott Gumbleton, dynamic small forward Leroy Jetta, Hot head bull midfielder Tommy Hislop, Contested midfield accumulator Bachar Houli, speedy Small forward Alwyn Davey, and Rebounding HBF Kyle Reimers. This would be the launch pad for a successful era for Essendon, with returning captain Matthew Lloyd. A premiership was just around the corner……
