Emerging star Essendon forward Nate Caddy has conceded his club’s mounting key-position injury toll is becoming “pretty tough” to deal with despite notching a Dreamtime at the G triumph over Richmond — but he hinted at next Wednesday’s mid-season draft as a mechanism for replenishment.
The 19-year-old also shared an insight into the days following the Bombers’ 91-point loss to the Bulldogs as his side returned to the winners’ list on Friday night.
Essendon prevailed by 23 points at the MCG to claim their sixth win of the season from 10 games, but the four premiership points came at an injury cost, with crucial forward Kyle Langford going down with a quad injury.
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Langford appears set for a stint on the sidelines, joining fellow ailing key pillars Sam Draper, Nick Bryan, Tom Edwards and Lewis Hayes — all ruled out for the year — as well as Harrison Jones (ankle) and Nik Cox (concussion), who have indefinite timetables for return.
Burgeoning key defender Zach Reid also exited with hamstring awareness in the second half, though the Bombers aren’t yet sure if it’s a genuine concern.
Asked if he felt the accumulating casualty ward placed a bigger burden on himself and Peter Wright to carry the attack, Caddy told Foxfooty.com.au post-match on Friday night: “Yeah, it’s pretty tough, I won’t lie.”
But the 2023 no.10 draft pick alluded to next week’s mid-season draft as an avenue for the Dons to top up their dwindling stocks.
“We’ve got to really deal with some setbacks and a bit of playing out of your roles and stuff, but I think there’s a mid-season draft this year — and I’m pretty sure we’ve got a lot of picks for that — so we’ll see how we go with that,” Caddy said.
The Bombers’ winning cause was helped by a sparkling Angus Clarke debut, with the Glenelg utility booting three first-half goals and threatening all night as an attacking target.
“He played his role perfectly and got on the end of a few at the start,” Caddy said of Clarke’s first taste of AFL footy.
“He just kept competing, and he’ll keep getting better and learning, and hopefully (have) a few more days like that.”
But contending with more unavailability will continue to be a struggle for the Dons, with coach Brad Scott forecasting role changes and more debutants.
“I held the coaching group back a little bit post-game … (I told them) there’s going to be challenges, but this is what we’re here for,” Scott said.
“This is a coaching opportunity for us. We need to think differently. We may need to recast some players in different positions, but the key is how we coach that and get them ready for that.
“It’s not just a matter of moving the magnets, it’s about preparing players to play slightly different roles.
“Of course we don’t want to lose players to injury, but (we’ve had) six debutants so far this year, and likely more to come … it’ll be a busy week; short turnaround, mid-season draft. A lot of work to do.”
The Bombers could have as many as four selections at next Wednesday’s mid-season intake, with a key-position player or two likely on the menu.
Caddy called Friday night’s win over the Tigers “a bit of a relief” after Essendon fell by 91 points to the Bulldogs last Saturday night.
“Obviously, we had a really bad game last week, and all we could do, really, was just respond — and I felt like we got that done tonight,” the 20-gamer said.
Caddy said that part of Scott’s midweek messaging was to “move on and be optimistic”.
“I think the best way to do that (respond from the heavy loss) — and I think Brad did it pretty well this week — was (to) just move on and be optimistic about the stuff that we can get better at.
“And there was clearly a lot (to get better at) from last week, and I think that we went into this week just thinking of all the things we could get better at and take it into this game.”
Caddy said while it wasn’t easy putting such a disenchanting loss out of his mind so quickly, fixating on it even more would’ve been counterintuitive.
“Obviously it stings a lot, but … you can’t really let it bother you, because it’s not going to help any more,” he said.
“As soon as you can move on, the better. It’s pretty hard to lose like that, but if you dwell on it, it just creeps in … as soon as you can get it out of your mind quicker, the better.”
Debutant SHINES in first half for Dons! | 00:58
But getting back into the win column wasn’t easy by any means, as the plucky Tigers kept things uncomfortably close for the first three quarters before Scott’s charge ripped the game open in the last.
Richmond took seven intercept marks from Essendon forward forays in the first quarter, as the Bombers struggled out of the gate finding the final connecting piece in attack.
“They were sending a plus-one behind the ball, and when they first send one over there, it’s kind of hard to deal with at the start, because everyone’s just kicking it long down the line … there’s an extra person standing there, and it’s kind of hard to compete,” Caddy explained.
“We just had to adjust to that and make some changes at the break, (with the plan to) hopefully mitigate that as much as we could.”
Those changes? “Just structurally making sure we’re sticking to our process, but then also a few things that we came into the game with — we had to realise that it wasn’t working and adapt, and then kind of equalise and make sure that plus-one behind the ball wasn’t really a factor anymore,” Caddy said.
Scott, asked if he was pleased with a 6-4 record given the tempered pre-season expectations, praised his side’s progress but didn’t look too much into the win-loss column.
“We’ve been resilient; we pride ourselves on it. We’ve won some close games, I think that’s a good foundation from which to build,” Scott said.
“But my focus and the coaching group’s focus is preparing this team for the team they want to be, and I’ve said repeatedly that we set the game up to try and win every game we play, and so anything’s possible in this competition.
“But we don’t have goals in terms of win-loss to the halfway point of the year or anything like that. The result is just what it is — we’ve got to just focus on what we’re trying to build.”
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