Part Four

Intro.

This review follows on from Parts One https://thebombersblog.wixsite.com/thebombersblog/post/2025-vs-2024-vs-2023

Two

https://thebombersblog.wixsite.com/thebombersblog/post/part-two

and Three

https://thebombersblog.wixsite.com/thebombersblog/post/part-three

and continues the assessment of Essendon’s 2025 season by again considering the year in two distinct phases.

The first covers Rounds 1 to 11, when the side had a more settled set up in personnel and structure, offering the clearest picture of how the team’s processes were intended to function.

The second spans Rounds 12 to 24, where injuries and regular lineup changes created ongoing disruptions, forcing constant adjustments and making continuity across the ground difficult to maintain.

As with the previous reviews, the aim is not to judge results alone, but to examine the processes, what held up when the team had a stable platform, and what broke down when continuity was lost.

Ball movement.

This has become the most important aspect of the modern game, simply because of how well teams now defend.

The first step is to gain territory from clearance and then hold that field position by restricting how effectively the opposition can transition the ball from end to end. The same question inevitably gets asked in return: what mechanisms exist in your game to regain territory once it’s lost?

For some teams, it comes through kicking skills, either shifting angles helped with uncontested marks or piercing the opposition’s zone with precision execution. For others, it’s run-and-carry, linking up by hand to create overlap and get into space. Whatever the default mode may be, most games still demand the flexibility to switch between methods as situations change, including the predictable long down the line to a contest when that’s all that is available.

Going forward.

• No team averaged fewer metres gained per disposal than Essendon after 11 games. This continued from 2024, where they were also ranked 18th, following on from 8th, 11th, and 12th in the three previous seasons.

• Only Brisbane averaged fewer metres gained per mark than Essendon by Round 11, with Gold Coast, West Coast and Sydney averaging the most. Over the final 13 games, the Bombers lifted to average the 6th most, with Fremantle, Gold Coast, Hawthorn and Adelaide at the top, all of whom would play finals. No side in this period increased its output from the first 10 games more than Essendon, which rose by 10.6%.

• The AFL average this home-and-away season was 16.48 metres gained per disposal. By Round 11, Essendon had exceeded that in only 4 of 40 quarters (Q4 vs West Coast, Q3 vs Collingwood, Q4 vs Sydney, and Q3 vs the Western Bulldogs). Over the final 52 quarters, they went above it in 16.

• Across their first 10 games, the Bombers won the territory battle only three times (Port Adelaide, Melbourne, Richmond). Nine of those 10 opponents transitioned from defensive 50 to forward 50 at a rate above the 2025 AFL average, with only Collingwood (Round 7) going below 22.9%.

• In the final 13 games, Essendon again won the territory battle just three times (Carlton Round 13, Richmond Round 18, St Kilda Round 23). Of the 52 quarters in this period, they won more territory in only 16.

Speed in going forward.

• Essendon hasn’t averaged more front-half one-on-one contests than the AFL average since 2021.

• By Round 11, Essendon’s average of 10.2 one-on-ones in the forward half ranked 15th, ahead of only West Coast, Sydney, and Richmond, teams that at that point had combined for just eight wins from 33 games.

• At that stage of the season, Sam Draper was averaging the most one-on-one contests of any Bomber to have played five games or more, with 2.6 per game — 19th in the competition. Of the top 25 players who averaged the most contests, his 15.3% win rate was the second lowest.

• Kyle Langford was the next Bomber to average the most one-on-ones per week, with his 30.7% win rate the 10th best of all players averaging two or more a game.

• Despite averaging almost the same number of one-on-ones in the final 13 games as in the opening 10, Essendon won more than 26% of them, a rate that if sustained across the full season would have ranked 12th in the competition.

• From Round 12 onwards, Peter Wright was the only Essendon player to average more than two one-on-ones per game, winning over 41% of them. If maintained for 23 weeks, only Patrick Dangerfield and Jesse Hogan would rank above Wright.

Opportunities to score, for and against.

• Essendon games featured the 4th-fewest possession chains per game ( the number of times the teams started with the football) with only North Melbourne, Richmond, and Fremantle games averaging fewer.

• Between Rounds 11 and 24, Essendon averaged 106.07 possession chains per game, the third-lowest in the competition (ahead of only Richmond and St Kilda).

• Only the Lions averaged more uncontested marks per chain than the Bombers up until Round 11. While Brisbane averaged the most, they restricted their opposition to the seventh-lowest rate, unlike Essendon, who allowed the highest rate. That only got worse in the remaining 13 games, with 0.9 clearly 18th in that period.

• In 2023, Essendon was the eighth-most effective team at converting a possession chain into a score, with only Adelaide ranked higher among teams that missed the finals that year. In 2024, they were the 10th-best, with Fremantle and Collingwood the only teams above them among those that also missed finals. After 10 games in 2025, only North Melbourne and Richmond were less likely than Essendon to convert a chain into a scoring shot. Of the top eight sides in this measure, seven went on to play finals, with only GWS below the AFL average.

• Essendon’s first three games of the season were their most efficient at turning possession chains into scores, with 27% against Port Adelaide their best rate. Unfortunately, they failed to exceed the AFL average in any of the following 20 games.

• Essendon’s last quarter against Adelaide was their most efficient at turning a chain into a score from their first 10 games, with the next-best rate coming in the first quarter against North Melbourne in Round 8.

• From Round 12 onwards, only West Coast’s 15.77% was lower than Essendon’s 16.68% in converting possession chains to scores.

• In 2023, Essendon ranked 15th at defending chains from becoming scores (21.4%), but improved last year to 12th at just over 20%.

• Until Round 11, the AFL average for turning a chain into a score was 21.03%. Essendon held Port Adelaide, Melbourne, West Coast, North Melbourne, Sydney, and Richmond below that, all six sides finishing outside the top eight. In the last 13 games, only Carlton, Richmond, GWS, and Sydney were kept under the average.

End to end, for and against.

• In 2023, Essendon ranked 3rd for moving from defensive 50 to forward 50, converting 23.28% of chains. The rate dipped only slightly to 23.15% in 2024, but the competition improved and the Bombers slipped to 8th. By Round 11 this year, their success rate had fallen to 19.9%, the lowest in the league. Their average over the past two year period of 23.21% would’ve ranked 8th.

• Across 2023–24, Essendon were the 4th and 5th easiest teams to move the ball end-to-end against. After 10 games in 2025, they were the easiest, followed by West Coast and North Melbourne. Over the last 12 games, 32% of opposition chains starting in the defensive third reached the forward third, almost a 4% increase on their first 10 games, and another 4% rise on 2024.

How were chains started and ended.

• Ten games into the season, Essendon started just under 57% of possession chains via intercept, the 8th most, with four of the seven teams ahead going on to play finals. In the following 13 games, a 7.35 drop in clearance effectiveness forced a heavier reliance on intercepts.

• Only Sydney and West Coast saw a higher share of their possession chains ended by opposition intercept than Essendon up to Round 11. By contrast, seven of the top eight teams at finishing chains with a scoring shot played finals.

• Essendon had 58.85% of their possession chains end in a direct turnover to the opposition, with only Sydney and West Coast recording a higher percentage across the first 10 games.

• No team had a higher percentage of chains ended by turnover in the last 13 games than Essendon, with over 61% going to the opposition, more than 5% higher than the opposition’s own turnover rate.

• Up to Round 11, Essendon started over 35% of their possession chains in the defensive 50, the 8th most of any side. In 2024, just under 32% began in that same zone, the 3rd least.

• After 11 rounds (10 games for Essendon and Gold Coast), only GWS, Sydney and Richmond had a lower conversion rate than the Bombers in turning a chain started from a clearance into a scoring shot. Five of the top six teams in this measure went on to play in the second week of finals.

• Despite their inefficiency in scoring from clearances, Essendon ranked 5th for defending chains that began from a clearance and ended in an opposition scoring shot, behind only Carlton, Brisbane, Collingwood and Hawthorn at the same stage of the season.

• By Round 11, Hawthorn was the only eventual finalist with a strike rate under 20% in converting opposition turnovers into scoring shots. Essendon’s 18.96% ranked 6th worst, a slight improvement on last year’s 18.42%, but still below Brad Scott’s first year in charge at 19.65%.

• Up to Round 11, Essendon had conceded a shot from over 20% of their turnovers, the 8th worst in the competition, only marginally worse than 2024’s 20.48% and 2023’s 20.51%.

Overview.

As you’ve just read, there are some disappointing figures that reflect Essendon’s method with ball in hand when the season was most up for grabs in the first half. And there’s no other way to put it: once again, there are poor numbers to back up their continued inability to defend and disarm the opposition when they didn’t have the football.

With the football.

Each year under Brad Scott has brought a shift in game style, and this season’s centred on pushing numbers higher up the ground to support the contest once the game was in motion after the centre bounce.

That support aimed to assist around stoppages and to help win the ball back when required.

This approach demands smart decision-making on multiple levels, first, in positioning at the source to provide an outlet when teammates have possession, and then in how to use the ball when moving forward.

These numbers are usually achieved by half-forwards pushing up, which triggers one of the countless decisions in modern football. Does the opposition send their direct matchup up the ground to even the numbers around the ball? Do they counter from the other end by sending their own half-forward higher? Or do they hold structure behind the ball, sacrificing numbers at the source for stability in defence?

With more players drawn to the immediate source, congestion is inevitable, making clean exits a harder challenge. In turn, post-clearance contests are in space both ahead and behind, creating genuine one-on-one opportunities for forwards to win and defenders to stand tall.

But to truly capitalise, the next most important factor is the speed and directness with which the ball leaves the area.

This year, Champion Data introduced a new metric measuring how teams move the ball, standardised to an AFL average of 100. Scores above 100 indicate quicker-than-average ball movement (with anything above 120 considered fast), while scores below 100 indicate slower movement (with 80 or less considered slow).

The overall figure is supported by three components that describe how a team moves the ball — Fast/Slow, Long/Short, and Direct to Goal/Lateral — with each category measured through:

Time: the average duration a player holds possession before disposal.

Distance: the average distance covered per disposal, regardless of direction.

Distance to Goal (DTG): the average distance gained directly toward goal per disposal.

Each is indexed to an average of 100, giving a balanced view of a team’s speed, length, and attacking intent.

Up until Essendon’s bye in Round 15 (against Fremantle), Geelong rated as the fastest and most aggressive team toward goal, with the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide next, the three highest-scoring sides at that stage of the season.

At the other end of the scale were Essendon and North Melbourne, the two slowest and most indirect teams to goal, each preferring to hold possession and move the ball laterally more often than anyone else.

As noted earlier, only Brisbane averaged fewer metres gained per mark than Essendon. Yet the Lions were among the fastest sides to move ball to foot, opting to go short and shift angles with controlled possession, in contrast to the Bombers slower, more indirect approach to finding a mark.

With the high handball game never going to take territory as quickly as by foot, more run and carry is obviously required, and with teammates around them, Essendon needs to change their attitude to take the ball forward with more purpose as well as following up once the ball is in motion.

Too many players “get and give” and don’t continue with the chain which should create a wave attacking the opposition. Instead, either through fitness standards (which no doubt need to be improved) or development (another that desperately requires more resources) they feel their job is done and options are then limited to the player with the ball.

The other most important part is that those numbers who won the ball further up now need to work their way down to get to the drop of the contest to aid their fellow forwards, to either even up the numbers that the opposition has in its own backline, or better, create an outnumber at ground level.

While much of the focus has been on the method with the ball, team selection, mainly through the players’ capabilities rather than injuries, has been a factor in the decline of how well the Bombers transition.

The modern high half forward role has yet to be reliably filled, a role that also relies on positioning smarts, fitness and work rate.

Of the multitude trialled to fulfil this requirement, only Nic Martin and Sam Durham were effective on numerous occasions in 2025, with first-year Isaac Kako improving as the season went on.

Jade Gresham showed in bursts that he can link up with midfielders ahead, but Ben Hobbs, Archie Perkins and at times Matt Guelfi either couldn’t get to spots to receive on the way forward, or simply didn’t have the work rate or speed to reach the next contest to support.

This is a role that requires forward craft and finishing skills to hit the scoreboard, and also a 360-degree midfield game in traffic when further up the ground.

Most of the highly successful teams have a mixture that blurs the line between forward and mid, such as Zac Bailey and Gryan Miers this year. The versatility in Essendon’s midfielders to be rotated out and spend time forward is lacking outside of Zach Merrett and perhaps Jye Caldwell, with Darcy Parish, Will Setterfield and Elijah Tsatas looking more like pure midfielders and not much more.

The inevitable change.

Once injuries took hold, Essendon’s younger players understandably struggled to maintain the high-possession, handball-and-run game, and as the season wore on, the method of attack inevitably shifted.

Gaining quick territory by foot became a clear priority, something Scott highlighted repeatedly as the second half of the season began.

Between Anzac Day and Indigenous Round, Essendon exceeded the AFL average for metres gained by foot in only two quarters. In the two games that followed — against Brisbane in Round 12 and Carlton in Round 13 — they went above that average four times, choosing to move the ball longer and more directly to contests ahead. But it wasn’t until Round 17 against Gold Coast, and the two games that followed, that the message truly began to take hold.

Against the Suns, who ranked number one for metres gained toward goal, the Bombers matched their opponents’ intent and tested their defensive structure more often, generating 12 front-half one-on-ones, well above their season average to that point. Unfortunately, the following week’s rematch with the Tigers revealed that decision-making still had a long way to go, and that Essendon’s attacking method needs to be more flexible,

not just week to week but quarter to quarter.

In that game, Essendon effectively “blasted” the ball forward by foot with little care for structure. In the first, third and fourth quarters, they went more directly to goal than in any other quarters of the year, regularly feeding Richmond’s intercept defenders and forcing the game to be played almost exclusively between the 50-metre arcs. The balance between using extra numbers at the source by hand and going long by foot was completely out of sync.

Much more situational training is needed to find a better balance between moving the ball quicker by hand through run and carry, and going longer by foot to create more one-on-one opportunities in the front half than 10.2 per game (ranked 15th by Round 11), with inexperience the major factor from that point on.

Damage.

There’s a big tick for generating more possession chains from intercepts in the first 10 games, but the reward on the scoreboard didn’t match the effort, with far too many of those chains turning over themselves.

Poor decision-making was once again a factor, but so was execution, an issue that continues to stem from the players’ skill levels. Only so much improvement can realistically occur through development alone; the draft and recruitment remain the primary avenues for genuine change.

Another element that limited their ability to capitalise from intercepts was field position, specifically, where those chains began because of what Essendon allowed the opposition.

Without the football.

There’s no easy way to say it — Essendon have been poor at defending transition for years leading into 2025. And with most players available early in the season, it’s hard to believe, but they were even worse than recent history.

Far too much territory was simply given away, whether from intercept or clearance. Rebound chains ran too far in the other direction, and the core reason was Essendon’s inability to defend uncontested possessions, more specifically, uncontested marks.

If you’ve read any of my previews and reviews this year, you’ll know this topic has been on repeat. And truthfully, there’s nothing new here that wasn’t already written throughout the season.

Show any weakness to the other 17 clubs and opposition analysts will quickly take note and find ways to exploit it. The control game was one such area, with teams recognising how to expose Essendon’s structure when forced to defend possession, and the signs were obvious early.

Essendon played chaos football, either by their own planning or because of what was forced on them by the opposition, but they rarely managed to impose that same level of chaos in return.

The groundball game was a strength across the first ten rounds, with Essendon losing that head-to-head count only three times. However, they were often forced to win possession this way against some of the best defensive teams in 2025.

Against Hawthorn, Adelaide and Collingwood, the Bombers won more groundballs than marks, while these three opponents all took more marks than groundballs. This is a simple example of what being hard to play against looks like.

Quote taken from Part three.

“By Round 11, Essendon games were the most controlled (more marks than groundballs) of any in the league, with the largest differential between total marks and total groundballs across both teams, averaging just under 11 more than Melbourne, who ranked 17th.”

Uncontested marks help reset the field after the chaos that may have occurred, allowing teammates to regain position and structure to both set up attacks and defend as the game moves down the ground.

When too much freedom is afforded through the middle of the ground, it places a heavier burden on standing up in defensive 50, and too much responsibility falls on the last line of defence to prevent chains ending in a score.

Often, the defensive method was a disjointed mix of one-on-one (each player assigned a direct matchup), zone (players defending areas of the ground and alert to any opposition entering that area), roll-back (pushing numbers behind the ball to provide support), and trade-up (leaving a direct matchup to attack the opposition ahead with the ball), with little consistency between teammates at crucial moments. The Essendon zone is too easily penetrated through their forward half and requires a significant structural upgrade, particularly in the open expanses of the MCG. Returning to the high press, pushing numbers up the ground to build a “wall” that the opponent must break through, seen in 2024 would be a strong starting point.

Slowly, the list is turning over, with players who are either unable to consistently defend contests, or incapable through basics like leg speed or being proactive and anticipating what may happen next, being identified. Unfortunately, this process will need to continue before significant improvement is seen.

Coming up: Marks

Examining their effectiveness in attack, particularly inside 50, and in defence, controlling the air to set up both offensive and defensive opportunities.