Part Two

Intro.

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

in comparing Essendon’s 2025 season against the previous two.

To give a clearer picture, I’ve split the season into two distinct blocks. The first covers the opening 10 games, up to Round 11, which I consider the period that best reflects the team’s processes and players’ capabilities when given the most stable opportunity to perform.

The second spans the final 13 games, from Rounds 12 to 24, where injuries, turnover in the lineup, and constant adjustments prevented the team from demonstrating what it was truly capable of.

This is not an “out” on Essendon’s 2025 season. Rather, it is an attempt to accurately examine how the first 10 games can be assessed on their own, how the structure and personnel changes after that shaped performance, and what the implications were on the team’s overall output. By separating these periods, it allows us to see both what worked under reasonable conditions and what fell away when continuity was broken.

Stoppages.

The first opportunity to win the ball and, if so, get it onto the scoreboard. At worst, this should be used to gain valuable territory in order to set up field position, otherwise it puts a lot of reliance on the backline to not just hold up defensively, but also intercept and from there, regain what was lost through ball movement.

• Over the previous two seasons, Essendon games consistently featured the fewest stoppages, including centre bounces, ball-ups around the ground, and throw-ins. Up until Round 11, that hadn’t really changed, with the Bombers averaging the third-lowest across the competition with 69.5 per game, compared to Carlton (79.5), North Melbourne (77.8) and Richmond (76.1) at the top end.

• Post-Round 11, no team’s games were more in transition than Essendon’s, with their last 13 averaging just 65.2 stoppages outside the centre bounce, the least in the competition.

• Even with relatively few stoppages, Essendon’s on-ball brigade managed to hold their own at restarts, averaging a +3 differential to that point and ranking sixth in the league.

• Of the four teams ranked above, they had yet to meet the Lions and Suns, who were second and fourth, but had played the Bulldogs and Kangaroos. On both occasions, those teams showed where their strength lies, with North Melbourne controlling the first three quarters by six, while the Western Bulldogs were +12 when the game was most up for grabs early.

• The +22 differential at stoppage in Dreamtime was the main reason for the Round 11 win, though this isn’t a strength of the Tigers, who finished the year 17th in this category. On that night, the Bombers outscored the Tigers by 22 points from this score source, their second-biggest differential for the year.

• The following week, the Bombers’ midfield mix of Jye Caldwell, Will Setterfield, Nic Martin, Archie Perkins, Zach Merrett and ruckman Todd Goldstein came up against Brisbane’s formidable midfield, which by season’s end would rank third with a +4.69 clearance differential, and Essendon were able to take their biggest scalp.

• After being walloped on the scoreboard early in that game, the Bombers’ ability to fight back in the middle two quarters came almost entirely through clearances, with a +8 differential in those 40 minutes, and 37 points generated from this source compared to just one against.

By the end, they had held the Lions to just 16 points from clearances while scoring 49 themselves, their second-highest total for 2025 and their biggest differential.

• Things really fell away after Round 12. Essendon finished in the positive at stoppages just three times in the final 12 games, monstered by Fremantle, GWS, and the Western Bulldogs again, and in the last four matches, they averaged a -8.4 differential.

• Only five midfielders attended 40% or more of centre bounces across the first 40 quarters, compared to seven in the last 40.

• Before his injury, Sam Draper rucked in only 53.5% of contests, following on from his 2024 average of 52.4%. His three-year average sits at just 55.5%, which places him outside the top 25 players over that period.

• By Round 11, of the 31 ruckmen averaging 30% or more of their team’s ruck contests, Draper’s 21.3% hitouts-to-advantage rate ranked fifth lowest.

• After the first 10 games, the Bombers ranked 12th for winning first possession at stoppages, with only Sam Durham and Jye Caldwell inside the top 40 among players who had played five or more games. (Elijah Tsatas was Essendon’s top-ranked player in 27th, but he’d played just three) As a comparison, Gold Coast had five players, while Carlton and the Western Bulldogs had four each.

• Converting those first possessions into clearances was the next step, and only Durham went above 75%, putting him in a group alongside Caleb Serong, Patrick Cripps, Zak Butters, Noah Anderson, Matt Rowell, Jai Newcombe and another 13 players.

• Post Round 11, it was still only Durham and Caldwell who consistently got their hands on the ball first (with Parish also contributing, though he only played three games), but Caldwell would only feature in five of the last 13 games and Durham in 10.

• From Round 13 onwards, Essendon finished in the positive at first possession only three times, and just once in the final eight matches.

• Seven of the Bombers’ last 13 opponents converted their first possessions into clearances at a higher rate than their season average.

• While Essendon wasn’t efficient enough at converting first possession into an effective clearance in the first 10 games, they absolutely were at denying the opposition — stripping them at the second-best rate, behind only Geelong. Of the top 10 teams in this measure, seven would finish inside the top nine on the ladder.

• Once injuries hit the midfield, the Bombers’ ability to strip the ball dropped away, with a rate of just 23.5% from Round 12 onwards, ranking them 14th.

Overview.

Though there were promising signs in parts of the stoppage game, some of them had a bigger impact than others.

Clearances as a score source, which I’ll cover in more detail in upcoming parts, stood out as one of the few defensive positives in a season shaded by negatives. But against the best teams, the gap was still obvious, and it placed immense pressure on one of the most important aspects of the modern game — transition. That area has been a long-term focus for Essendon, and it remains one that continually demands improvement.

The first 10 games at stoppages around the ground highlighted the shift in Essendon’s game plan for 2025.

With extra numbers at the contest, the Bombers needed to efficiently turn first possession into clearances, chaining out of congestion through handball, with receivers like Merrett, Nic Martin and Xavier Duursma linking from the inside work of Durham and Caldwell.

As I explained in Part One, using hands in this part of the ground is the right choice, but too often poor decision-making and execution meant the setup didn’t translate into enough reward. Some of that came down to a failure to connect in the front third, Essendon ranked bottom four in turning a stoppage chain into a mark inside 50, and some to struggles generating shots at goal from general play, with only West Coast averaging fewer per game.

Of course, part of the blame falls on the forwards, which I’ll cover in later reviews, but greater polish between the arcs and a more mature grasp of the game plan will go a long way.

Two areas stand out as missing pieces if Essendon is to fully capitalise on clearance wins: leg speed from multiple runners who can spread in waves from the contest, and forwards with the endurance to push up as extra numbers while being smart enough to link up as part of the chain forward.

Several players were trialled as high half-forwards, but outside of Nic Martin, and occasionally Durham when resting forward, none consistently impacted with ball in hand. With this role only becoming more important across the competition, especially if Essendon continues its handball-heavy approach, it may be time to revisit the type of role Will Setterfield once played.

Up until this year, Setterfield’s primary function was to get underneath the ruckmen to win the ball and deliver it to teammates to exit the area. While only partly effective in that role, this year his focus shifted to a more defensive approach, aiming to limit the opposition’s ability to do the same and create opportunities for Essendon’s midfield to attack.

Durham has proven he can stand up at the coal face of stoppages, but his greatest value comes on the outside, where the punishment he can inflict on the opposition is better served to the team. That leaves a clear need to replace the role Setterfield previously provided.

At this stage, Tsatas doesn’t have the foot skills to punish the opposition on the outside, but it’s time to see whether he can combine with Caldwell to consistently service teammates and move the ball cleanly from inside to out.

In Round 2 against Adelaide, in just his 13th senior game, Tsatas earned his highest AFL Player Rating, driven by his stoppage impact.

From only 50 minutes of game time, the fifth-lowest of all 46 players on the ground, he won 11 of Essendon’s 39 clearances, helping turn three in every four of their 44 first possessions (equal third-most for the season, well above the early season average of 37.2) into effective clearances.

The next step is converting this work into direct scoring impact, but the indirect benefit was clear: improved field position helped set up Essendon’s forward-half intercept game, which was the main source of the 100 points they scored on the day, also their highest score of the season.

In his three games up to Round 11, Tsatas converted over 84% of his first possessions into clearances, with only Caleb Serong, Matt Rowell, Mark Pittonet, Touk Miller, and Marcus Bontempelli more efficient. It’s time to find out if he can be part of the answer to one of the most critical areas of finals football.

After Round 11, things really fell away at stoppage, and this played into poor starting positions for possession chains, with too many beginning too far from goal.

Only West Coast started more chains in defensive 50 off the back of clearance losses in the last 12 games than Essendon. Adelaide, Hawthorn, Carlton, Western Bulldogs and Fremantle were the top five teams in denying a clearance loss from going inside 50 unbroken.

This made things even harder for a defensive lineup already heavily affected by injuries.

While the opposition may not have scored from the initial clearance, the territory gained fed the main scoring source, turnovers, and from the main part of the ground, the front half.

The top six teams in points scored from front-half chains all finished inside the top nine on the ladder, while seven of the bottom eight teams for average points from the defensive half finished in the bottom eight.

Plain and simple, it’s much harder to score from the back half, especially against teams whose front-half game is so hard to penetrate.

There was very little positive that can be taken out of this year defensively, very very little, but one of them was the midfield’s ability for the first 10 games to strip the opposition of the ball inside the bubble of stoppage and in turn, convert it into a clearance of their own.

At this point Essendon had played six games against sides with a positive stoppage differential (Essendon themselves were +3, ranked 6th). In those games, the Bombers were able to strip their opponents at a higher rate than those teams had typically conceded to other opponents.

If Essendon had kept up their early form, their 28.5% would have finished number one across the home-and-away season, with six of the top nine teams on the ladder also finishing inside the top nine for this stat.

But the Bombers couldn’t maintain that level once the midfield started losing first-choice options, and it didn’t help when they came up against the best clearance-exit teams in the Bulldogs, Suns, Sydney, GWS and Fremantle to finish the year.

The opposition showed on numerous occasions how to exit stoppage while exposing shortcomings in Essendon’s set up outside the area, and most of all its tackling technique and obviously execution.

The outer layer of protection around stoppages acts as the second safety net in keeping opponents contained, whether it’s the winger at a centre bounce staying disciplined and avoiding getting drawn into the action, or the high half forward resisting the urge to hunt the ball and instead holding width to support the setup.

When that structure breaks down, even numbers at the source can quickly become outnumbered as players become redundant through poor shape, creating a cascading effect down the ground through overlap run with no coverage, leaving the opposition on the attacking side with space and front-facing to goal.

Let’s be honest, if you can’t stick tackles reliably in the regular season, there’s little point booking finals tickets, because September is about applying consistent pressure without the football, particularly when the game restarts.

The AFL average in 2024 for opposition possessions per tackle was 5.8. Six of the eight teams that performed better than this made the finals, while Adelaide and Collingwood, the two that missed, would qualify in 2025.

Not much changed this year, with the AFL average at 5.78, and only Brisbane below that among the top nine teams.

Early signs weren’t encouraging for Essendon, who up to Round 11 could only manage a tackle every 6.12 possessions, exceeding the AFL average of 59.3 tackles per game in just four matches.

Essendon must become harder to play against across the ground, particularly in this area where the weekly battle begins.

Coming up.

Part Three: Possessions. Ball winning pre-clearance, post-clearance, in the air, at ground level, and what it means in finals football.