All this talk of Sheedy has me little concerned. Granted, off-field he will do wonders for the club, but on-field Im not so sure. We have spots to fill in our squad and Sheedys previous methods has been to trade, but if you look at the last few years his win/loss ratio in that field hasnt been that great. On one hand you have: Zantuck, Heffernan, Justin Murphy, Campo and on the other hand, well Michael and off the top of my head that seems to be about it for the positives. True, most of them were in the pre-seaon draft, but guys like this shouldnt be taking the spot of a kid you can develop for a third of the wage. He also has this rep for sticking with nothing players, Henneman, Bolton, Bradley, Johns all who have matured into nothing, we have enough Millers.
I agree that he hasn't been great over the last five years as far as drafting and trading, but I believe that there are different circumstances at each club.
Firstly, we have a different recruiting manager, one who is regarded as high-quality in the football community. I believe Essendon's main recruiting man throughout the 90's was Noel Judkins, responsible for putting together their fantastic team which won the 2000 Premiership. Around that time, he went to Collingwood and Essendon got Adrian Dodoro. His record isn't great and that reflects in their current list; great veterans but not a lot of promise after that.
If you look at our list, we have a very promising group of 18-22 year old players, something which Sheedy hasn't had since the mid-late 90's. He will do wonders with these young players.
Secondly, Essendon has always had a strong spine and leadership group. These are players who have won premierships before. So you could excuse Sheedy, to an extent, for trying to trade for experienced players, thinking that they could have one last crack at a flag. It didn't work out for the Bombers, and some of those trades did make you wonder, but I believe that is one of the main reasons why Sheedy went down that path.
At Melbourne, we don't boast those experienced stars like Essendon, so we are under no illusions as to our premiership chances. Therefore, I can't see Sheedy doing too many trades.











