Essendon

[Bulldog Joe]

With the reductions to clubs' footy departments, Stringer should be their fitness and conditioning coach.

Now I would like to see that.

[Twodogs]

To me they tend to have a lot of faux stars. They talk up (and recruited as and pay as) the likes of Dyson Heppell, Michael Hurley, Dylan Shiel, Jesse Stringer, Joe Daniher, Adam Saad, Zach Merrett, AMT and Michael Hurley as being stars but in reality the vast majority of them are not the players you want as the best player in that position, and the ones that are capable of being that are either constantly injured or wildly inconsistent.

The perfect example is their midfield. I know everyone thinks its shit (and they probably do now as well) but it was clear whe they recruited Shiel that he was more of the same. Their midfield is full of guys detined to be the third best mid at a good club, with none of them capable of being more than that. Heppel, Shiel, Merrett and Smith are their best 4 mids and they a) don't compliment eachother enough and b) need a better player to carry them. They need that one standout mid to bring the rest up a level, a Bont, a Kelly, a Neale. I know thats obvious and much easier said than done, but it's a really strong group of guys to be a midfield group sitting underneath someone who can carry it, but without that star too much responsibility is placed on the rest. This is obviously exacerbated by the fact the that group, like the Essendon side as a whole, is incapable of grinding out games and working both ways, making them super vulnerable especially against good sides with good midfields.

Other issues are that the next tier down is pretty crap, I know most sides primarily have a group of good players that numbers around the 10-12 mark (Essendon come pretty close to that) but most side shave a pretty competent next tier which Essendon lacks. Parish and Langford are maybe emerging a bit more this year but the former is as vanilla as his haircut and the latter lacks hurt factor, Ridley to be fair is genuinely very good, Redman is ok, Draper is promising but is a young ruck just starting out and McGrath probably belongs in the above category but I do actually think he is decent, but after that they are just filling their side out with dogshit like Laverde, McKernan, Fantasia, Francis, Cutler, Townsend and Stewart.

Essendon supporters like to point out that Smith won the B&F but with all due respect to them that's a bit like being the best looking member of the Bolshevik leadership in 1918. It's all relative.

With the reductions to clubs' footy departments, Stringer should be their fitness and conditioning coach.

That could work. Ask Jake whatever his plans are fitness wise and then do the opposite.

[Dancin' Douggy]

He'll have them borderline flying in no time.

With the reductions to clubs' footy departments, Stringer should be their fitness and conditioning coach.

[Axe Man]

‘He’s looked horrible’: Riewoldt debates Bombers star’s lack of fitness

St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt believes Jake Stringer has plenty of work to do to get himself back to peak AFL fitness.

The Essendon star has struggled since returning to the side after a long injury lay-off, collecting just 27 disposals in the last five rounds.

The Bombers appear to have potentially rushed the former Bulldog back, given his poor feats in recent weeks, as the club searched for a spark to get the team into finals.

“He’s looked horrible since he came back,” Riewoldt said on Fox Footy.

“Only Essendon would know whether he’s done the work or not. He’s been labouring and to the eye you wouldn’t say he’s a picture of fitness.

“Only they can answer that question, all we can do is judge it on what we see and he doesn’t look overly fit.”

Recently, former Port Adelaide tagger Kane Cornes took aim at his appearance, after vision emerged of the 26-year-old with his guernsey off.

“I‘ll get smashed for this and the PC brigade will come after me,” he told Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show.


“If you‘re a full-time professional athlete, you don’t present yourself like that. To steal (Port Adelaide coach) Ken Hinkley’s line, you get what you deserve in footy.

“That‘s why he returns five disposals yesterday, he’s not fit enough. When you don’t perform and present that out of shape, you run the risk of being criticised for it.

“He needs to look at what Christian Petracca has done and what Max Gawn has done in the past if he wants to get the most out of that talent because that display of physical fitness is not good enough.”

[Rocket Science]

It's all good and well to pot Jakey for turning into a pudding but there's still been no satisfactory explanations forthcoming for this.

[Mitcha]

Numbers not exactly through the roof prior to his injury layoff. For mine he and Essendon were made for each other, flat track bullies.

[The Doctor]

Despite being the AFL's resident basket case for most of the last 10 years, Melbourne have still won more finals (2) than Essendon & St Kilda combined.

[ledge]

He picked the right team to go to as far as getting away with stuff if you have any talent.
Fitness program must be a shambles if he is still getting a game looking like he is.
His third year at the bombers and he has shown no signs of improving and is getting chubbier.
One things for sure, he will get a Massive write up in summer on how he is chaffing at the bit to play round one next year.
If Daniher leaves he will be their main forward, can’t see the bombers going anywhere but deeper down ATM, Also can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel either.

[Grantysghost]

Did we see this from Woosha last week ?
If that's not a crack at their cheating past, I'm not sure what is. So much so he had to back pedal yesterday because "Essendon people" had a whinge.

"Essendon people think that Essendon should be better but they've also got to understand that the competition challenges clubs now to work to the same rules".

[ledge]

Did we see this from Woosha last week ?
If that's not a crack at their cheating past, I'm not sure what is. So much so he had to back pedal yesterday because "Essendon people" had a whinge.

"Essendon people think that Essendon should be better but they've also got to understand that the competition challenges clubs now to work to the same rules".

So he is admitting they used to have different rules to everyone else ?
Biggest slap ever if ever I’ve heard one.
I think even him being coach the arrogance of the club got too much for him.
Sounds like he was shut down trying to change the club and they wouldn’t listen and they still think they have different rules.

[Bulldog Joe]

So he is admitting they used to have different rules to everyone else ?
Biggest slap ever if ever I’ve heard one.
I think even him being coach the arrogance of the club got too much for him.
Sounds like he was shut down trying to change the club and they wouldn’t listen and they still think they have different rules.

Something like they may be rules for everyone else, but for us they are just guidelines.

[ledge]

Something like they may be rules for everyone else, but for us they are just guidelines.

Bahaha I like it.

[EasternWest]

He picked the right team to go to as far as getting away with stuff if you have any talent.

I've never seen Essendon summed up better than this.

[ledge]

They were absolutely horrid tonight, Melbourne aren’t much better considering what they were playing for, be an injustice if they get in the 8 and we don’t.

[bornadog]

It gets better and better:

IS THERE A PLAYER EXODUS LOOMING AT ESSENDON?