'Rebuild': Hall of Famer's take on Essendon's list struggles

Essendon must continue to attack the national draft.

That’s the view of club legend Dustin Fletcher, who remains faithful in the club’s direction amid a tumultuous 2026 season.

Sat dead last with just one win across the first 13 rounds of football, Essendon have certainly seen better days… although those days were quite some time ago.

Now 7949 days since their last finals win – a game that Fletcher was a part of – the club has suffered for an extensive period.

As football’s newest Hall of Fame member explained, despite lacking top talent, the draft must be the club’s first priority going forward.

“From a pure draft sense, the last batch that we got, guys like Dyson Sharp, Sullivan Robey, Max Kondogiannis (and Jacob Farrow), I think we got a really quality group of players,” Fletcher told SEN Sportsday.

“If you’re really harsh, a few drafts before that, we still may be waiting for those guys that should have played 50-60 games by now.

“Kevin Sheedy always said to me, players don’t start becoming really good professional, strong players until about that 50-60 game mark. We’ve lost it a little bit with those guys, and we’re still hoping they will come good.

“You look at Zach Reid on the weekend; he had a pretty good performance. We need to really start seeing those guys come through.

“Top end talent is always a good indicator. I still think we need a bit of top end talent in the footy club.

“That might mean that we’ve got some top end talent there, but we’ve still got to get a little bit more out of that senior bunch.”

Throughout their extended drought, Essendon’s recruitment has certainly raised questions.

Paying big money for free agents, trading for senior depth while also taking picks to the draft, their methods certainly haven’t paid off thus far.

“We’ve maybe been caught in between a little bit,” Fletcher said.

“We’ve brought some players in in Jade Gresham, Ben McKay and a few of those guys that have been reasonable for us.

“I think we’ve just got to build that group of players. You don’t like hearing it, but it might be a couple of years where the current crop gets 40 games into them and build from there.

“You never like hearing ‘rebuilding’, but it’s a time where we’ve just got to do the best that we can and get them up and going as quick as we can.”

After 400 games, two All-Australians, two premierships and a best and fairest across a brilliant career with the Bombers, Fletcher was officially inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday.