Where are Essendon ?

[Pessimistic]

Where are Essendon on the success cycle.

Lets use Hawthorn as the Benchmark.

Hawthorn's cycle starts in 1982 when the entered the finals, then did seven straight GFs, Missed a year then 'pinched' one aginst the west coast.

Bomber fans might be better at judging but I reckon they are at 1988, with one, two or three years left as premiership contenders.

Perhaps if they had better luck with injuries in recent years they would have done better. Their injury management has been spectacular this year (similar to Carlton 1995) but perhaps this is the peak

It would be Ironic as Hawthorn also played Melbourne in the GF in 1998

PS if you apply the same to The Roos they are at 1990 with perhaps a 'swansong' premiership left if all were to go well.

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

yeah interesting Pess

think back to 1984-1985 and the Bombers were seemingly at the start of another 'golden era'

yet in the years after that they couldn't go on with it and fell away pretty alarmingly.

Will they do the same this time ?

Last year SHOULD have been their '84, this year is most certainly their '85 so whats next for the Bombers ?

I dunno - lets wait and see what happens with thier list during the trading period and lets see how intrested they are in 'coming to play' during the Ansett Cup / Practice match season.

If I were the Bombers, I would be BURNING to make it twice in a row and then be around to contest a couple more GF's after that too.

THEN they can claim a 'dynasty' (or whatever you want to call it) to match Hawthorn of the 1980's.

 

[walshy1993]

pess essendon is definetly at the start of there success cycle
long wallis bewick and barnes all have a couple of years left at that stage leaving hird, mercuri, misiti, wellman, hardwick, barnard, prior and fletcher to step up
then it goes down to the vast range of 21 to 24 year olds that all have their best footy to come, m&j johnson, solomon, lloyd, lucas, heffernan, moorcroft, blumfield, and caracellla and ramanauskas
then there is also jacobs, rioli, henneman, mcalister, switala, mcgrath and hille and a couple more who can all play and didnt get much of a run this year
a couple of good recruits in the next few years or a couple of trades will ensure essendons success for a long time to come
a

 

[Pessimistic]

Bear in mind that at Hawthorn in 1991 the 'Future' was (norm smith medalist) P Dear, Lawrence etc and Ben Allan, D Jarman who went home.

Our debacles in 1993 and 1996 aside they were not as good as they seemed when they were 'the men' Not even the extended careers of the Rat, Piggy, Langford etc could plug the holes. Is your 'next tier' of sufficient quality to cover Hird, Long etc ?

Had you had your best players not injured over the last few seasons, you might have got past the one point lsses you suffered (Hird and Long for a start)

I think you might have had your 1986 and 87 already, and are now squarely in 1998.

But the Hawthorn thing would be hard to match, due to draft and salary cap which were designed to stop that sort of thing.

 

[Stealth bomber]

My wish would be to be the first club to get to 20 premierships. It would be nice to see the club win three in a row at some point; they've failed to achieve that. That's one area where Collingwood, Carlton and Melbourne have bragging rights. I think the league is way too competitive to do that though.

It is rather curious how Essendon fell way off after 1985; obviously Hawthorn went on to bigger and better things. One thing Essendon hasn't ever really done is dominate any one era.

I don't see much drop off in form for Essendon next year but the odds of stringing together two or three flags on the trot are very long even for the best sides. It could be like a Hawthorn 80's thing where they pick up four flags in seven years.