With the 2022 AFL season complete, Kane Cornes and Garry Lyon have gone through all 18 clubs and come up with burning questions for each.
Essendon finished 15th in 2022, falling down the ladder and sacking coach Ben Rutten, replacing him with Brad Scott.
Lyon asks who is Essendon’s most important player?
“And when I say most important, I’m talking about the player who is going to sit alongside Brad Scott and drive them to the standards that they need to be driven to given this is a playing group that went to their coach and said ‘you’ve got to coach us harder’,” Lyon told SEN Breakfast.
Kane Cornes’ answer: “It’s Zach Merrett in that space. And everything that you hear about him is that he is fed up and he’s had enough and he had some hesitation about signing a big deal.”
“He is the next captain, they’ll make that call this year you’d think. He is the one, but it’s not just on him. It’s on that midfield that have been just so poor and selfish defensively. Selfish is a strong word, but even they would say that.
“How do they get everyone to buy in, how do they get Jake Stringer fit, how do they kick enough goals, how do they defend like their life depends on it?
“Teams just waltz through the middle of the ground against Essendon. There’s been no structure.
“It’s an acceptance of role (in the midfield) that you can’t all win 35 disposals.
“Brad Scott will get the balance right. Having Darcy Parish and Zach Merrett and all of them together in the midfield doesn’t work. You can’t have blokes that just hunt the footy.
“Merrett is probably the driver of it, but I think it’s a big question and I’ll be interested to see how it unfolds.”