If you read about footy in the off-season, all you would have heard in regard to the Bombers is doom and gloom.
That’s all I seem to have read. Anyway. Maybe that’s a good sign? Usually, at this time of the year, the Bombers get their dose of positive articles and it never ends well. Perhaps this apparent reversal in coverage will see them turn things around, themselves?
Alas, the knives seem to be out for this club, and it is times like these that you need a galvanised, driven group to prove the naysayers wrong.
But before we go about debunking or confirming theories as to why the Essendon Football Club will crash and burn, it is important to look at why people are of that belief.
They are citing the loss of Jake Stringer, who kicked 42 goals in 2024 as something the club will struggle to cover. They are looking at the lack of development from the “big three” draftees taken in the 2020 National Draft. And they are looking at a midfield that has remained unchanged from the 2024 season, where they ranked 14th in clearances, and 15th in contested disposals.
Fair points?
Well, that depends. Are they assessing the team on what they were? Are they factoring in injuries and niggles that limited the ability of some? And are they discounting players before they’ve really had a chance to shine?
You can argue either side, and probably do it convincingly, as well.
Do you think the Bombers will crash and burn in 2025?
When I look at this club, I see the team that was sitting second at the halfway point of the season in 2024.
A lot of things happen during the course of the footballing year, and whilst the Bombers slipped to end up in 11th place, this was a team that was competing with the best, and doing what they were supposed to against the lesser lights of the league.
They weren’t that far away.
People talking about Carlton as the sleeping giant of the AFL, but I have a long memory, and I know there is an enormous Essendon supporter base who are dozing at the moment, waiting for the opportunity to roar once again. All it takes is some momentum in the second half of the season.
Get that, and anything can happen.
And wouldn’t it be great to silence some of those who have written your boys off before a ball has even been bounced?
It’s that time of year, already.
The break after Christmas and New Year is over and 2024 is well and truly in the rear-vision mirror. The holidays are finished for AFL players, and the hard stuff starts now. Yes, the teams had been training for well over a month prior to Christmas, but as we head into 2025, the stakes are raised, and the intensity increases.
This is where premierships are won and lost. This is where improvements are made and lists come together. This is where the kids show if they’re serious or not. New faces, new colours, old heads with renewed passion… so much feeds into the making of a contender. And as the days tick down toward the intra-club clashes, practice games, and eventually the real stuff, questions are raised about each team and how they’re going to perform in this new season.
And that’s where HB and The Mongrel come in.
We don’t do things by halves here, at The Mongrel Punt. When we do a season preview, we go all out to make sure it is the best, most comprehensive coverage you’ll receive. We pride ourselves on it. If you are going to read one season preview for your team, or any team, this series will provide it.
The way it works is as follows.
Each club has a minimum of 15 questions asked about the upcoming season, their coaches, their players, and their expectations. The answers are not glossed over. We dive deep on each and every one of them – some singular answers would normally be long enough for an entire column. The first five questions/answers are free for you to consume. The next 10-14 for each club are for our members, including a special appearance from Mrs Mongrel to throw her two cents in the mix.
Isn’t it a bit early for a season preview? Well, I suppose, but do you know how long it takes to write seven-to-nine thousand words? That’s 18 x 8,000… gets out the calculator… that’s 144,000 words. The average novel is about 85,000 words, so buckle the hell up with these previews; we’re going deeper than ever.
Also, if there are any issues that arise after the publication of the preview for any team, they will be covered in standalone articles to act as additions to this preview.
You will not read a deeper season preview than this – I guarantee it. This is where we start the run to the new season, and believe me – nobody does it better than The Mongrel.
And now we visit The Hangar. Essendon, you’re up.
1 – WHERE DO JAKE STRINGER’S GOALS COME FROM?
It’s a fair question to start with, and one that has been posed by a number of footy heads over the off-season. Kicking 40+ in any season is a feat in the modern game. Across the entire league, just 20 players managed it last season. Those types of players are worth their weight in goals (see what I did there?), and whilst I would not say Jake Stringer is irreplaceable – far from it – how Essendon cover for his absence is more than a matter of switching a few magnets around.
Luckily, the Bombers do have options.
You see, people tend to forget that the Bombers have this big bloke who stands in the goal square, but hasn’t really been able to recapture his 2022 form, that saw him top 50 goals for the only time in his career.
Peter Wright being a viable aerial target makes this forward line click. He draws the defence to him and opens up space for every other Bomber forward on the park. However, his 2023/24 form has meant that defences didn’t have to be overly concerned with him.
With 38 goals across the last two years, he has become the forgotten man when it comes to the league’s big forwards, and for good reason. Half the time, he simply hasn’t been there for them to worry about.
Wright has missed a heap of games, both through injury, and a weak AFL suspension that punished him for making a good, hard contest early in the 2024 season. Seriously, even as an opposition supporter, I was rolling my eyes at that one. Wright had been criticised for not being hard enough at the footy, and then he goes hard, and the AFL come down on him like he has committed murder…
Anyway, enough of my whining; I am sure I’m preaching to the choir on this matter, anyway.
Wright attacking the contest hard is vital to the Bombers finding success in 2025. It will be him taking grabs (and yes, he needs to do more of that – noted), and bringing the ball to ground to bring players like Alwyn Davey, Jade Gresham, and Matt Guelfi into the play, that will make the Essendon forward line work in harmony.
Of course, there are other things we need to factor in, such as Harrison Jones lifting his output, and Nate Caddy commanding more attention, but those are topics we’ll cover in their own sections. For me, the forward line will live and die by how “on” Peter Wright is during the season.
I know it is a lot of faith to place in a bloke who only sometimes brings his A-Game, but his importance to this team cannot be overstated. Big fellas capable of kicking 50+ goals in a season are a far rarer commodity than players who snag 40, at a ratio of over 3-1 if we use the 2024 season as our guide.
Get Peter Wright working inside 50 (he is an underrated set shot at goal, by the way) and people will soon cease lamenting where Stringer’s goals went. Perhaps the blokes at GWS might end up asking that?
Oh, and there’ll be a bit more on what the Bombers gain from losing Stringer a little later on, too. Suffice to say, I am not a fan of his.
2 – IS A FIT JORDAN RIDLEY THE KEY TO THIS TEAM PLAYING FINALS?
Absolutely, he is. Or at least one of the keys.
When Ben McKay was recruited to the Bombers, of all the players who would have been licking their chops at what it meant, Jordan Ridley was the one I envisioned being happiest.
There is a trickle-down effect of having a big, strong key defender on the last line of defence, and even though the club had Brandon Zerk-Thatcher (who had a very solid 2024… right up until the Preliminary Final, where he put in a shocker), in the goal square, there were times they just needed a huge presence to kill the contest and hold his ground against some of the AFL’s monsters. Bzerk was okay for the Bombers (forget that reverse Coleman stuff… that was more to do with poor team defence), but Ben McKay is a level-up.
McKay gave the club that massive frame, and in the process, he lightened the load on players like Jayden Laverde, who was asked to play bigger than he was for a couple of years. In turn, that was meant to lighten the load on Jordan Ridley and Mason Redman, but the injury to Ridley meant we didn’t get to see this defence operate at its optimum.
And it threw the back six into a bit of chaos.
Ridley was limited to just nine games – injured to start the season, and injured to end it. It had to frustrate the young man, as his best is right up there with THE best when it comes to intercepting and rebounding defenders. His Crichton Medal back in 2020, as a 21-year-old, was supposed to be the platform that launched him into the upper echelon of the league’s defenders, but right now, we’re at the point where injury is becoming more common than good health.
And that is something he, and the club, need to rectify quickly.
Jordan Ridley is one of the best talents in the game, but the longer we see him operating at well below capacity makes people forget what his best looks like, and I would hate to see him become one of those players that are accompanied by the following statement.
“He could have been a great player, but…”
2025 is the year Jordan Ridley has to re-establish himself. In doing so, his intercepting and rebounding can turn defence into offence for the Bombers. And that, my friends, is what makes a team dangerous.
As you’ll read later, being dangerous is exacty what the Bombers need to be in 2025.
3 – WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM NATE CADDY THIS SEASON?
It’ll be a trade, if you’re up for it.
You can expect good, steady development from him – nothing groundbreaking, and nothing that will set your heart aflutter. Just a good, solid year, as he further learns the ropes and becomes more familiar with footy at the highest level.
And in return, he has every right to expect that the Essendon faithful understand where he is at in his career, and offer both support and patience as he grows into his role.
Sound like a deal?
I like what I’ve seen from Caddy – he flies at the footy without fear, and has a very nice pair of hands on him. As he grows and gets stronger, he has the opportunity to become a potent forward…
… but, he is just 19 years old, people. Tell me who the last bloke was to come out and have a big year as a key forward at 19. I’ll wait.
Give up?
It was Jeremy Cameron, way back in 2013. Players like him don’t grow on trees, and even with the right structures around Caddy, I can’t see him taking the bull by the horns this early in his career.
In 2024, Caddy managed three games with multiple goals to his name. If we are conservative, I think saying seven or eight games wit that type of return this season would be absolutely around the mark for him.
Looking at young talls in the league, what you’d ideally like to see is Caddy working towards the level that Josh Treacy is now at after four years in the game. He has been brought along slowly, and when he entered the 2024 season, he was cherry ripe to make an impact.
Caddy has demonstrated he has the tools to be good. He has the leap at the footy, he is controlled in the air, and if he gets two hands to the ball, he is a great chance to clunk it… but it is going to take time for him to become the player Essendon needs. It’s fine to want more from him, but the reality is that it is going to take time for him to deliver it.
At this stage, his role is reliant on Peter Wright being a strong presence, and Harrison JOnes making a step up in terms of his development, as well. If those two guys are stretching defences, and Kyle Langford is lurking around like Joe Ganino at an all-female gym, Caddy will find room to operate, and is intelligent enough to lead to spots where he can use that launch at the footy to his advantage.
Floor and ceiling?
The floor is he has a down year and struggles a bit. It’s not the end of the world.
The ceiling for 2025 sees him play 20 games, move up to around 1.5 contested grabs per game, and average 1.2 to 1.4 goals per game. Suffice to say, if the Bombers get that type of result from their young forward, they’d be ecstatic.
4 – DOES MASON REDMAN HAVE ANOTHER LEVEL? DO THE BOMBERS NEED HIM TO FIND ONE?
As mentioned above, the injury to Jordan Ridley caused a bit of reshuffle in the Essendon back half in 2024, and whilst I’d like to blame that for Redman NOT elevating his game, I reckon this is the level he is at, and is likely the level he stays.
I like to use history as my guide, and at the moment, Redman has turned in almost the same test paper three years straight.
Here are his numbers from 2022-24
| Disposals | Intercepts | Rebounds | Metres Gained | Marks | 1%ers | |
| 2022 | 21.1 | 5.8 | 4.5 | 435 | 6.0 | 2.1 |
| 2023 | 21.9 | 5.9 | 4.9 | 468 | 6.0 | 2.3 |
| 2024 | 21.2 | 5.4 | 4.3 | 419 | 6.2 | 2.2 |
Well, at least he’s consistent, right? And sorry for the shitty table formatting on a phone – I’m not great at that stuff.
Redman’s breakout season was in 2021, however, since then, he has not continued the upward trajectory. He is playing his role, is reliable, but delusions that he was going to emerge as the next elite running half-back have kind of dissipated. That’s not a terrible thing, but Bomber fans probably have to make peace with it.
Does it change any if Ridley is completely healthy?
Possibly, but I would be more confident in Ridley being the more prominent of the two, and Redman continuing on his consistent way.
I’m sure the Bombers would love him to go to another level, but at 27, we’re right in the middle of his peak years, and his numbers have hardly moved. Don’t expect them to in 2025, either.
5 – IS THIS THE SEASON SAM DRAPER “CLICKS”?
Am I alone in thinking Sam Draper should be one of the elite ruckmen in the competition, right now?
Given that, where would you rate him?
Here are the rucks I’d have above him.
Max Gawn, Tristan Xerri, Rowan Marshall, Tim English, Oscar McInerney, Brodie Grundy, Darcy Cameron, Sean Darcy, Kieran Briggs.
Those are off the top of my head. It begs the question – can Draper actually make it into that top tier at some stage? Or is he going to be the bloke that flashes in and out of games, doing one or two great things, surrounded by a whole heap of not a lot going on?
Look, I love when he tucks the footy under his arm and runs out of the middle as much as anyone, but how many times has he done that? As compared to the times he has gone long stretches without having any impact?
That’s like watching someone’s instagram stories and thinking “wow, that person is great!” without understanding that all you’re seeing are their highlights. When you look at Draper as a whole, the package is a lot less glamorous.
Todd Goldstein averaged more hit outs per game. The bloke is about 300 years old, and I reckon Brad Scott brought him into this Essendon team to teach Sam the value of hard work. Would you consider Goldy a supremely talented ruck? One of the best of all time?
As much as you might want to hear that he is (he is now a Bomber, after all), I reckon he has got where he is as much based on hard work as he has on talent. If just a smidgen of that elite work ethic rubbed off on Draper, the Bombers could have something special on their hands.
But can you see that happening?
Draper is now 26. These are his peak years. And yet, his career high numbers for disposals per game are 11.2 (2024). His career high numbers for hit outs are 24.2 (2021), and his career high for clearances is 4.4 (2021). And don’t give me this “he played a bit as a forward last year stuff” – he averaged 0.7 goals per game. If he is playing as a forward, he’s failing there, too.
I cut big blokes some slack. Players like Tim English took a while to come into their own, but they arrived. Tristan Xerri is younger than Draper, and so are Luke Jackson, Kieran Briggs, and Tom De Koning.
As it stands, I would take any of those mentioned over Draper, and that is something I did not think I’d be saying at this point of his career.
Time to get serious, time to cut the crap, and time to stop coasting on the basis that you’re just a big bloke. A man of Draper’s talents should not be outside the top ten rucks in the game, but that’s where he is right now.
And that has to change in 2025. If it doesn’t, I reckon Nick Bryan’s development might start people thinking that Draper’s time as the number one man may be limited.
The next 13 questions are for our members. Option to join below.
This is just under a third of our preview. The rest is available exclusively to our members. People, we give value. No same old gabage you’re going to hear from ten others, taking turns in mimicking each other. No played out opinions. Thoughtful and comprehensive – that’s what we aspire to provide in these previews, and your support makes them bigger and better every year. Jump on board.
