Trying to Find Hope in the Hopeless - Part II - The Search Continues
This is the most apt meme of recent history to describe how Essendon fans generally feel after a massive 2 game sample size into a season, and 2026 is once again no different.
Putting in the effort yesterday to re-activate my Kayo, set it up on the telly, get the game on, just to end it by researching what the lowest percentage of all time (47.02% by University in 1914) and the consecutive loss records (51 games by that same University team, Sydney had a 26 game for the modern era record) are is a pretty sad state of affairs for a Round 2 game. Tell you what though – those records better watch out, because we’re fucking coming for them!
I still don’t know why I care so much. They’re like a girlfriend that has cheated on you 14 times, but you convince yourself the 15th time will be different, and you let them back in.
It’s been 4 years since I wrote the last hit piece, and literally nothing justifying any type of celebration has occurred in that time, and unfortunately going back and reading that first piece I actually realised it was worse than what I put down at that point in time.
It’s not just a lack of success that is driving the fans rabid; it’s the complete absence of any sign of seemingly WANTING to improve. No structure, no growth, no want, no heart. They’re the current calling cards of Essendon Football Club, and it’s not even a dirty secret, it’s industry known.
Since 2017, we’ve appeared in 3 finals.
8 seasons, and you could watch Essendon’s finals appearances start to finish quicker than The Godfather trilogy, which is ironic, because whacking Essendon from the league might be the only thing that can put the fans out of their misery.
Because I’m a super big fan of sadness spirals apparently, I went back and had a look at those 3 finals, and they’re so Essendon it hurts.
2017 – We finished 7th. We were also 1.39% out from finishing 9th and missing the finals completely. Scrape in to then get rolled by 11 goals.
2019 – Finished 8th…with the 13th best percentage in the league (a massive point of contention for me, which is coming up). Get done by 55 points.
2021 – Our last finals appearance. Once again, sneak in at 8th spot to immediately get KO’d to the tune of 49 points.
3 finals, -169 total at an average defeat of 56 points. Not great.
Onto the percentage I mentioned earlier. I have been banging on about this, much to the chagrin of the footy chats I’m a part of, that no matter where Essendon finish on the ladder, our percentage is always awful, and to me that is always alarming. In the most basic sense, what it means to me is that we’re getting absolutely flogged by everyone above us (hell, sometimes teams below us join in that fun for good measure) and we’re only just beating the few teams we should be beating.
A quick rundown.
2022 – 7-15 record. 83.23% - 3rd worst in the league.
2023 – 11-12 record, only 1 ½ games out of making finals. 89.66% - 4th worst in the league.
2024 – 11-1-11 record, 1 ½ games out of the finals. 93.48% - 4th worst in the league.
2025 – 6-17 record. 69.49% (🤮) – 3rd worst in the league.
I don’t know how we can keep seeing results like this consistently, and refuse to face up and change things dramatically. I’m aware we blooded 15 debutants last season (look out – a new AFL record!), but that was merely A. Dealing with an abundance of injuries, and B. Trying to have something to point to and show the supporters that there’s hope.
Every week they’d bang on about a new debutant, and all it did was shit me more. Yeah, we’re playing kids, are they any good though, or are we going with a collective throw-shit-at-a-wall and hope something sticks mentality.
We’ve already shown that we can’t really recognise or nurture talent, so why should the supporters buy the bulk callups? We let Massimo walk to Hawthorn because we wouldn’t give him a regular game in our 22, and now he is a crucial part of a team who has premiership aspirations.
Not sure if Essendon are aware of this, but kicking goals in a game of footy is pretty important, and despite barely having a forward who can do that in the seniors, we had a bloke named Patrick Voss lighting up the VFL, and refused to play him. Now he’s at Fremantle and he has shaped not just their forward line, but also their culture and edge. I’m convinced that’s why he couldn’t get a game for us; he had too much dog in him. He wasn’t nice enough for our soft as fuck club.
There is an inherent softness to our club. In my last piece I wrote that I like Andy McGrath, but after watching him lead in these first two games, in interviews (where he outwardly admits we’re no good by picking Geelong for the flag without hesitation, whereas every other captain at least feigns confidence their team will win it all), in live games, and then in the post-match break downs, he has no place leading a team. If he’s not going to lead from the front, have confidence in his team, be inspirational on the field with two-way gut running, what hope do we have with the kids coming through? If the leader has an attitude and effort problem, that will inherently fester through the ranks, and the cycle will continue when McGrath moves on and his heir is chosen.
Softness breeds softness.
Onto this week’s game against North Melbourne, which for a Round 3 game against a fellow cellar dweller (or are they) could be a keystone moment for the club. Unfortunately, however, I don’t have hope for a positive outcome in terms of a win, but hopefully some positive comes out through change.
7869 days since Essendon have won a final. Second longest drought? North Melbourne. Unfortunately, the gap between North and Essendon is more than double of that from 1st place to North. Not great.
In the last 6 seasons, North have won 3, 4, 2, 3, 3, and 5 games. 20 games, or 2 games more than Adelaide won…last year alone.
They have been the laughing stock of the league for years. Financial ruin, no direction, and no success, and yet, here they are, $1.50, 2 goal favourites over my Bombers of Essendon this week, and even I think that is light. I guessed they would be at least 4 goal favourites and watching both teams play yesterday, and I don’t think it’s a vote of confidence in Essendon for it only being 2, it will be solely due to the turn around from a Sunday arvo Perth game for the Roos.
The exact snippet I used in that last piece:
“I’ve already jokingly resigned myself to the fact I may not live to see another Essendon flag, a joke which unfortunately is losing its punchline rapidly.”
Nothing has gotten better; it has, however, got a lot worse.
My previous piece was titled “Trying to Find Hope in the Hopeless”. At the moment, finding that hope is equivalent to a Where’s Wally book, where Martin Handford forgot to draw Wally.