Essendon: The Lost Years

[Havoc]

Has anyone seen this?? Very interesting documentary.. and shows Essendon had their heart ripped out after being forced to trade Hardwick, Caracella, Moorcroft, Blumfield and Heffernan! One has to wonder if they were already over the salary cap.. after what Ricky Nixon claimed regarding the Matthew Lloyd and James Hird domain names, and the AFL warned them to do something about it.. hence trading out the blokes I mentioned previously.

The 2000 Essendon team is still the most dominant single season I've ever seen from any team.. it really should have been the beginning of a dynasty, and you can't help but wonder how much different things would have been.. if only Essendon were able to keep that team together.

 

[Shane Heard]

There’s already a thread about it.

There’s a thing called “ search “

You listen to Ricky Nixon? You’re a chicken fan?

That’s sad.

 

[Chief]

Yeah Ok Shane Heard - calm your farm.

 

[Boohemian]

Yeah Ok Shane Heard - calm your farm.

They certainly are putting in a shift for this shambolic, joke of a club.

 

[iameviljez]

Has anyone seen this?? Very interesting documentary.. and shows Essendon had their heart ripped out after being forced to trade Hardwick, Caracella, Moorcroft, Blumfield and Heffernan! One has to wonder if they were already over the salary cap.. after what Ricky Nixon claimed regarding the Matthew Lloyd and James Hird domain names, and the AFL warned them to do something about it.. hence trading out the blokes I mentioned previously.

I would take anything Nixon says with many a grain of salt, to be honest.

However, other sides have since shown that you can largely keep a premiership-winning superside together within the salary cap (Brisbane only lost Headland, Geelong may have lost a few fringe players had Gary Ablett stayed, Hawthorn the same with Buddy).

The 2000 Essendon team is still the most dominant single season I've ever seen from any team.. it really should have been the beginning of a dynasty, and you can't help but wonder how much different things would have been.. if only Essendon were able to keep that team together.

Geelong 2008, St Kilda 2009 and Collingwood 2011 were equally ridonkulous throughout, but fell over at the final hurdle. They (along with Hawthorn of that era) were unlucky to all come good at the same time, to be honest.

At the time, I too remember that it looked like we were going to have an Essendon dynasty - but, in retrospect, Essendon didn't have any real challengers in 2000. North and Carlton had both crested the hill and were in sharp decline by year's end, while Melbourne was a good workmanlike side but did well just to get to the GF.

Once Brisbane emerged as a genuine contender, Essendon looked a lot more fallible.

The real issue isn't, to my mind, what happened to Essendon in the years immediately following 2000. It's what happened to them from about 2005-onward.