HERE COMES 2026

I feel a calm fog has come down over Bomberland.

A brief pause in what has been a manic and chaotic season just past. I mean, even the week’s leading up to the draft felt chaotic! Will the Dons swap picks or won’t they? Which ones? For what? But, as is customary at this quiet juncture in the off-season, all parties have had enough of the mania and now deserve to take a nice long deep breath, and take stock of what has gone before … and what can be expected of what’s to come.

All eyes now lie on 2026.

However, let’s not beat around the bush. 2025 was pure torture … and with the latest injury news about Nic Martin, this year can’t end soon enough!

Losing streaks, injury curses (prove me wrong!) and capped off with a potential board coup, rumours about player dissatisfaction and the big blow … Merrett’s attempt to escape Tullamarine. I think most of us in the fandom would have expected that the end of the home and away campaign for the Dons (ending with a 13-week losing streak) would have been the end of the strife for a few months. But oh no! All it did was give way, almost immediately, to near earth-shattering changes in all areas of the club.

Let’s run through a few of them, shall we..?

After rumblings of an unpleasant conversation with an elderly former player and then talk of an all-out EFC board coup on the horizon, David Barham relinquished the presidency and stepped aside with as little of a ripple as he could muster. A silent (and likely made-up) succession plan was declared by the club and the new president, the development mogul and one of the club’s modern favourite sons, Andrew Welsh, took the reins immediately. This appointment is arguably the most popular appointment at Essendon since James Hird returned as coach in the wake of Matthew Knights’ departure at the end of the 2010 season. Former players lined up to support the new leadership at the Bombers, thanks in part to a forceful email by one of Welsh’s former teammates. The same man who would depart the board and return to the coaching box, as an assistant. Dean Solomon.

Can the former hard man get the Bombers culture back up and running?

The returning favourite sons was becoming a theme, yet, it wasn’t done with just yet.

His replacement on the board, premiership Swan and another son of the early 2000’s Bombers era, Ted Richards, was also positively received by the fandom. His success on-field has been met by similar success off-field in the financial sector. An intelligent and thoughtful man whose inclusion on Essendon’s board is not only wonderful optics … but a wise move, as the club looks to become a force again. The word of the off-season has been ‘unity’ and with each new appointment, there’s a growing sense that the fan base too has started to gel once again. And it needed to. Because if things continued down the path they were heading, things were going to get ugly…er.

Because despite the fact that the 2025 Essendon campaign will be remembered for a lot of different reasons by Bombers fans, it’s impossible to think that without a shadow of a doubt the club’s challenges with injuries will be the lingering legacy of this recent season. It was a disaster from end to end, and God knows I found myself wondering whether we were cursed as one after another, players were mown down by any number of different ailments!

The club had to act. It had to … and it did.

The club didn’t shy away from the problem and went all out to remedy the issue, even having the two ovals out at the Hangar assessed. But with the grass given the all clear, it was obvious the club realised that the injury issues were deeper than soil, and no one at the club was up to the job to fix it. So, rather than sweeping it under the rug club leaders went out and grabbed two true experts in the field. Dr Matthew Inness as the head of high performance and medical (formerly at West Coast), and David Regan as senior strength and conditioning coach, who has worked in elite organisations across both Australian and US sports.

These are massive appointments and if you believe what was reported around the time that Jordan Ridley was looking to potentially leave Tullamarine, their timely intervention and assurances, to him were key to Ridley’s ultimate decision to stay the course and remain in the red and black. This is huge! But the even larger mission now is to keep this side healthy, which already hit a significant speed bump when Nic Martin’s recovery went from investigation-mode to full-blown disaster. Even Nate Caddy’s groin tightness has caused a few eyebrows to be raised in alarm. If for nothing else but the sanity of us Dons nuffies who simply won’t survive another year of wholesale injuries, these two have to figure it out.

Because God help us if 2025 is played on repeat!

Nic Martin’s latest injury has him sitting on the sidelines until pre-season 2027. The pain! Oh the pain!

But change wasn’t just exclusively off-field, though, its impact was significantly less. Sure, the club didn’t bring a heap in via the trade period with only Brayden Fiorini entering from the Suns – a mature body with leadership potential. But it was probably the amount of players the club parted ways with that turned more heads. There were some that most saw coming, Alwyn Davey Jr, Luamon Lual and even the departures of Dylan Shiel and Jayden Laverde barely shocked a soul. But with the exit of Sam Draper to Brisbane, the removal of Todd Goldstein was curious and places a lot of pressure on Nick Bryan and recently upgraded prospect, Vigo Visentini.

But it was Ben Hobbs that caught me most off-guard. A former pick 13 not so many drafts ago … gone. No trade. Just gone. I have gone through a thousand different opinions of Hobbs during his time at the club, thinking that he was at times underperforming, or underused, or worse misused and poorly positioned. I thought for a second that he was showing promise, only to finally come down to the sad reality that Ben Hobbs just wasn’t ‘him’.

The club has had many moments where they could be ruthless in administrations gone by, only to wilt and settle for what sat in the middle. But this new iteration feels like it has sharper teeth than their predecessors. And their teeth were no sharper than when dealing with want-away and now former captain, Zach Merrett. Now, I’m going to keep this brief because it’s fair to say that every nuffie and his nuffie mates have had their say on this topic. However, I think it cannot be overstated how refreshing it was to see the club stand firm on the Merrett issue. Now, did I personally want to see a trade happen – yup – but am I pleased the club didn’t yield to a bad offer? 100%!

Let’s be real, this trade would have happened had Hawthorn not completed mishandled it. Had they not played their hand so late, not assumed Essendon would fold and had they actually put forward a single player worthy of the trade package required, it would be over. Merrett would be in yellow and brown, and we’d have been several picks and a useful player richer. But the Hawks came in late with a stack of unimpressive picks and we remain where we are. Never let anyone tell you that the fault for this lies anywhere but Glenferrie Oval, or VFL Park or that converted tip in Dingley they now call home. If Hawthorn truly wanted him so desperately, they would have shown it.

But arrogance cost them their big fish, the end.

So that leaves us with the most recent events in the AFL world, the 2025 National Draft. And it was certainly a busy night for Matt Rosa, Rob Forster-Knight and co. And a successful one at that!

It’s fair to say that come the end of night one of the draft, all at Essendon would have walked out of Marvel Stadium pinching themselves wondering how they’d landed three big picks. Three the club actually wanted … and I think most of us would agree, needed!

Can this trio of new faces help change the tide at Tullamarine?

Sullivan Robey was a huge get. A bulky key forward (and Bombers boy, too) with a future as one of two twin towers in the front with Nate Caddy. Plenty has been said about his extreme growth spurts over the last few years, but he may not be done yet. Robey has huge upside and I think we can expect plenty from him at VFL level in 2026, at least. Let’s all just hope these back stress issues don’t linger into the new year. Jacob Farrow was a bit of a surprise, but after watching copious highlight reels from the WA boy, I’m stoked to have him! A backman with a seriously impressive kick. Need I say more? With Nic Martin’s season over before it even began, Farrow is a shot at debuting early. And then there was Dyson Sharp. Essendon fan. Inside midfielder. All-Australian captain. Expected to play round one of next season. It’s like we all got an early Christmas present in Sharp! Let’s all just pray he is as impressive a player as his hype is!

And then by the end of night two, the Dons had added defender Max Kondogiannis (best name of the draft) and small forward NGA academy prospect Hussien El Achkar.

It’s easy to walk out of an AFL Draft feeling positive. Everyone does (well, most do). But this one truly felt like a monumental success for the football club. Rosa and Forster-Knight got what they came for and, arguably, a little more! Aside from failing to land Adam Sweid, everything went as well as could have been expected.

And despite the typical banter of opposition fans comparing being drafted to The Hangar being equal to a prison term, this will certainly not be the feeling of Essendon’s newest members. Because these new recruits will know that, unlike many of their peers who venture to other clubs as they kick off their careers, those heading to Tullamarine have a real chance to impact the senior team from day one. You only need to look at the fortunes of Isaac Kako, Angus Clarke and Archie Roberts for proof. These new draftees can press their case immediately by showing Brad Scott they’re serious about rebuilding this side.

And that is something worth feeling positive about Dons’ fans!

It’s delusion I know to feel any semblance of positivity going into 2026 as an Essendon fan. It’s deeply stupid and reeks of mental instability. But what can I say, I don’t think this list is as awful as the media is painting it. We think the faces in the playing list on the club’s website were the reason that the club failed so miserably in 2025, when a large swathe barely saw field time.

2025 wasn’t the true Essendon.

As I stated earlier, the club acknowledged the medical issues the team faced in 2025 and acted. Inness and Regan are important appointments and show the club is willing to put its money where’s its mouth is when it comes to making fundamental change to turn the team’s fortunes around. This is progress. How much will it remedy the team’s injury issues in the short term, is anyone’s guess. But it’s progress.

That’s what the Essendon of 2026 needs to be focused on, progress.

Progress in our medical department.

Progress in our coaching department.

Progress in our playing group.

Progress in our game plan.

And probably the most important of all, progress in the club’s culture. A culture of resilience, of unity and in the end …

A culture of winning fucking football games.

The end.

Go Planes.