Younger and less experienced then West Coast,Richmond,North but we are not turning over the list enough or rebuilding apparently
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Itâs going back some time now with Gawn, and he had the knee reco in his draft year, but my recollection is that he was seen as a tall, athletic type who needed to build size.
Most of the best ruckmen of recent times had the endurance profile before they were drafted: Brodie Grundy, Tim English, Todd Goldstein and Luke Jackson all come to mind as top level endurance runners from before they were drafted. You donât have to have that athletic profile, but at a professional level, itâs hard to close a gap through just hard work, as the natural runners are typically working close to or just as hard.
On Jobe, I think Ollie Greevesâ story this year reflects that we may not see a player with Jobe-style GPS numbers play again. To be fair, not many guys had Jobeâs GPS numbers when he was still playing â Jobe was just twice as gifted at reading the play than most.
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North Finding new ways to be on the bottom of the ladder.
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Iâm still extremely disappointed in our lack of want to invest in indigenous talent, especially given our history. Itâs a huge indictment.
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Yeah for sure but itâs more important to get the team running right first and then add in from there
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I get the sentiment. But if there just isnât any talent there to take, what do you do?
List spots are to tight and there just isnât a place for tokenism in any professional environment (not that it actually helps anyone in anyway).
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So many of the draftable indigenous kids being in other clubsâ academies makes it difficult too. Ideally weâd be finding some talent from our Tiwi zone, but there are tough living conditions up there and itâs a hard pathway to becoming a professional athlete. We at least have two Tiwi 17 year-olds in the academy at the moment. Hopefully weâre able to invest more up that way though.
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If the AFL actually cared, they could give every club a few extra list spots for indigenous players. The AFL could invest in an indigenous welfare/education HQ that would ease the burden on club spend - which is clearly why clubs no longer want to take the punt. Itâs always baffled me.
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Iâve just given up on this.
It was a Sheedy driven culture shift. It disappeared when he left. The club shouldnât be taking credit for it.
The main issue I have is, that the club is still profiting off indigenous playersâŚ. When it wonât prioritise recruiting them.
We must step away from Dream time. Simple as that.
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We have a rookie B list which (until this year) has been unfilled.
We can continue to make excusesâŚ.. but the club needs to be held responsible for this, and we must stop passing the buck to the AFL
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The club would argue that we have drafted many indigenous players over the last few years; itâs just that they havenât worked out as they would have liked. You can argue the semantics or debate how much time and money they put into them but the club will always be able to fall back on the players not really wanting to commit to an AFL lifestyle or were homesick or another reason for these players falling by the wayside. That is not enough to rip away the game from us when we guarantee revenue for the AFL; for the broadcasters and the MCG itself. Itâs not just the club that profits here.
Canât be serious?
Mosquito, Wanganeen, Alwyn Jnr, Jayden Davey. Thatâs 4 off the top of my head.
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Also if people are salty about the club not investing in Indigenous talent then help me understand how taking away Dreamtime changes that? It could easily be argued that the club would invest even lessâŚ
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I hate to ruin the illusionâŚ
But, the club is involved in Dreamtime because it has a big supporter base. Same as Richmond. It has nothing to do with how many indigenous players we have.
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My point is that the AFL throw a lot of money around to grow the game but this an area that is underfunded, they could try to help clubs address their concerns. If the ultimate aim is increasing participation numbers of indigenous players in the league.
In terms of Essendon, well, clearly we are awful at it, and for me thatâs a great shame it was an exciting part of our identity in the Sheedy years.
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No, thatâs just not true.
The club is involved with Dreamtime because Sheedy pretty much singlehandedly invented, marketed and created Dreamtime. It became an Essendon and Richmond fixture due to Sheedyâs involvement at both clubs, and to both clubsâ record (at the time) of support for indigenous reaching back to Rioli, Long, Kickett etc.
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I hope they get someone decent in the role
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We can get Gresham to toss the coin in the coming season⌠we can wheel him out to the middle of the ground even if he was injured,. What happens when we delist him at the end of the season?
We might have to come up with a bullshite initiative. We get a past player to toss the coin. 
What happened to the initiative of printing all the names of the players on to the guernsey? 
Not only a Sheedy creation since he was involved with both clubs, he also observed that our combined colours make up the indigenous flag.
Dreamtime stays with us and the Tigers
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