To be honest probably not a lot (in which case I’d retain both).
If somehow offloading them got us extra picks in the first round of the draft I’d take it.
Barring a miracle I don’t see Hooker being part of a flag with us due to age, and by the time a new window rolls around Zak’s would be getting on a bit and may not be on the list/best 22 anyway. For mine it comes down to a question of whether what we can get for them now is worth more than the extra few years of service we’ll get from both. If trading both for a bag of chips freed up cap space for a Josh Kelly level FA you’d have to seriously consider it.
Hooker has always stuck by the Essendon football club and as soon as things aren’t going great people want him traded, Hooker isn’t the problem.
Hooker stuck by us when he could have easily just walked out after how the club treated him and all his teammates.
Actually Hooker is probably 1 of the few good things the club actually has.
He’s not part of the “problem”, but presuming we don’t believe we can challenge for a flag in the next 3-4 years what do we gain by having him hang around?
And fwiw I thought post-saga was a perfect time to trade him if the price was right.
We were also a hard ■■■■, fairly rabid defensive team. Even if our forward entries weren’t great, the team was definitely going in the right direction IMO.
No, the last thing we need to do is try to recycle a coach. I honestly believe they get 1 genuine crack at putting the passion, energy & vision into a club & after that they are never going to be as good. Roos for example was still OK for Melbourne but was never going to be able to mould the club like he did the Swans because if he still had that same level of dedication & passion he would still be at the Swans. Blight at the Saints & even Bomba with us, he had 1st option to coach us before we got Hird but he was honest enough with himself to know he didn’t have it in him. Its not like coaches save up ideas & gameplans that they withhold from their current club just in case they leave. Sure I think Clarkson would make immediate improvements but I’m not sure he’s even got it in him to start again & do it successfully.
I thought post saga we needed a completely new face. I didn’t really have a preferred candidate but someone like a Dew or Beverage that hadn’t coached before & had no connection to the club. A guy who could come in no baggage, & at least try to forge a new career with a group that shares his vision & plays for him. I just didn’t think Woosha could do that & I believe we are seeing that now.
We dont need a rebuild yet, we have plenty of good players on the list, we are just mentally cooked for some reason.
I think it’s Post Saga Disorder, finally kicking in. We fought so hard for so long and after a hugely emotional year last of redemption last year, they just seem to be struggling.
I think this is the inevitable low we had to have at some point. There is no other explanation in my mind how we could drop off so quickly and so drastically for no apparent reason when all the indicators and player additions would say otherwise. I really hope we can still turn this year around.
Next 2 wins can get us 4 and 4, doesn’t look likely at the moment, but stranger things have happened.
I have been worried about their look from before the first game this year. In the rooms before round one, they looked very oddly relaxed, smiley and hugging each other. That’s not how you are supposed to look before a game of combative footy. Numerous on field incidents where the flag should have been flown, and just nothing. No team spirit whatsoever, Cant understand this
But that’s the whole point, and problem.
The board
The executive
The marketing team
The coach
The proverbial bootstudder
They’re all there for one reason:
To help 22 of our guys beat 22 other guys in the last game of the year
Anything else - and everything else - is a by-product.
(Which is obviously not to say big loss = sack the person who answers the phones… but the priority number 1 for a footy club should be footy club wins flags.)
True to an extent. But without the corporate side of things working very well we just become tin rattling North Melbourne. You need both the corporate and the football side to be strong or you will get nowhere. This is not park football, this is a multi million dollar campaign in a mega expensive, cut throat competition. Right now we are not up to the mark on the football side. Get that right, allied with what we have achieved off field, and we will be a powerhouse again. Personally I hope to christ we can turn it around onfield asap. Being a one eyed Essendon man at the moment isn’t much fun.
After the ban, we had pick 1 and all the returning players were weighing up whether to come back. Freo (among others) wanted Hooker he was a restricted free agent and the common thought was we would get pick 2 if we let him go, a similar deal to Melbourne letting Frawley go to Hawthorn. We wanted him to stay and in the end he decided not to go to Freo. We could have gently nudged him in that direction should we have so desired.
That’s a fair point and it’s obviously very difficult from outside looking in to determine the talent vs development gap. It’s probably a bit of both. But if you look at the players we have drafted (that were rated by most not the Dodoro smokies) I don’t think they have done as well as they would have in a Syd/Haw/Geel set up. How would Melksham have gone (we are getting a little incite into that now), would Hurley had been forward for years when he had ■■■■■■ wrists at Sydney, would Zaharakis been a better more consistent player at Hawthorn, how about Langford, Laverde, even Heppel. I know you aren’t Dodoro number 1 fan but I just don’t think the problem is all recruiting. How do you think Parish is developing? It seems Sydney, Adelaide, Hawthorn are rolling out better players with later picks and the law of averages says that development is at least an equal part of that.
Is it, though? Every club’s underwritten by the AFL to such an extent that clubs like St Kilda & Brisbane (dare I say Bulldogs?) ■■■■ millions down the drain with no repercussions whatsoever.
My angle here is that we spent probably a decade chasing our tails after Peter Jackson cut cut cut, and saved up a big pile of useless money whilst Windy Hill crumbled. The justification/defence used then, on here, if not by him, was “winning games is someone else’s problem”. Which is not right: it’s everybody’s problem. A losing club can’t be easier to market. A losing club can’t be easier to get to engage. A losing club can’t be easier to anything. It certainly wasn’t why we ended up where we are in the marketplace, that all follows from the success.
I’m not a huge one for statements - and in a day to day sense, it’s not going to turn the club around. But I can’t help but think winning flags is, and always should be, job number 1.
Reboot’s point about off field success is fair but I couldn’t give a fat rats clacker about how much cash we have. When we got rolled by Brissy last year did any of us take comfort in knowing we have more money than they do?
How bout we put more emphasis on winning games of footy and greater accountability on those that aren’t up to it? (players and coaches)
