‘Building a program of sustained success’ has been a key term for Essendon Senior Coach Brad Scott and CEO Craig Vozzo in their summations of the last two years at the Club.

After a period dedicated to establishing a solid, stable foundation for the Club’s football program, the important pairing are entering 2025 with a great deal of optimism around the potential improvement of one of the league’s youngest squads.

While Vozzo has been steadfast in establishing a vision firmly focused on a ‘process first’ approach, he isn’t shying away from his aspirations for the current list.

“Continual improvement (is definitely the focus) but that's not shying away from the fact that we aim to play finals,” Vozzo told SEN’s Breakfast with Garry and Tim on Essendon Membership Day.

“I mean, that's what we're here for, to get the best we can out of ourselves and to grow, that's our aspiration, but it's not an easy task. Obviously, Brad's talked about the evenness of the competition before, so nothing's a given, but that's what we're aiming to do.”

The Bombers’ shift towards targeting young talent through the draft and steering clear of the ‘short-term sugar hits’ that Scott has described previously has manifested in the shape of youngsters such as Elijah Tsatas, Lewis Hayes, Archie Roberts, Isaac Kako and Nate Caddy, who look set to be key factors for the Club beyond this year.

For Vozzo, that shift has been far from a small one.

“It wasn't a subtle change,” Vozzo said.

“I mean, when we got there - we made 20 list changes over the last two years to start with – but I think 10 or 11 of those were in year one. So, when you look at that, that was a huge amount of change. We brought in some free agents and we had a trade in Xavier Duursma coming in for Zerk-Thatcher, but that was in the context of not compromising our (first-round) and two second round picks going to that draft in ’23.

“From our point of view, it was building the depth of the list through all mechanisms we could, free agency, trade and, of course, the draft, that was the Caddy draft.”

Scott echoed Vozzo’s assessments of the Club’s direction on SEN’s Whateley, suggesting there’s been a tangible feeling of a fresh start, especially heading into this season.

“I think after two years now, we've made quite decisive decisions on our list to make the change that that we deem necessary,” Scott said.

“If you look at all the changes on and off the field over the last two years, they've been significant. I’ve said publicly that it just feels like there's been a real reset of our club.

“We’ve had a pretty well documented ambition to create stability for the Club from which we can build, and I think that that there's a sense that that has been done. Now we really feel like we can move forward.

“We refuse to be shackled by the past. We're looking at what we can do right now and into the future rather than looking back.”

Ahead of Tuesday night’s final practice match ahead of Opening Round – an AAMI Community Series matchup with last year’s Preliminary Finalist Geelong – Scott is most excited by the combinations he has at his disposal across all positions on the park.

It’s the defensive group that Scott made a particular note of, highlighting the prospect of not just Jordan Ridley, Zach Reid and Ben McKay as a staple trio in the back half, but the wider options available.

“(The competition for spots tonight is) pretty significant,” Scott said.

“For a start, I mean, we've got a relatively healthy list. We're really looking forward to having Jordan Ridley and Ben McKay come back into the side to play with Zach Reid for the first time in a very long time. I can't recall a time actually, when the three of those guys have played a regular game together.

“I'd also put Jayden Laverde firmly in that discussion, Lewis Hayes is the other one who plays tonight.

“I think we're developing a group of key defenders that are really flexible and can play on a lot of different opponents. Geelong will certainly throw up that challenge tonight, in terms of the capability that they’ve got in their forward 50.

“The issue for us has been that we just haven't been able to get those five playing, and we want to get into a position where we've got some really difficult selection decisions, but our hands been forced in the last couple of years just due to injury.”

The development of younger players has also been at the forefront of Vozzo’s thinking, especially the Club’s rangy demographic of players approaching their mid-20’s.

Sam Draper and Nick Bryan’s potential as a ruck partnership has been showcased in spurts at different stages over the last few seasons, but Vozzo expects it to take an even more apparent platform this year and into Essendon’s future.

“Well, they (Draper and Bryan) played together in the back third of the year. The hope is that they can be one of the more powerful combinations in the competition,” Vozzo said.

“We'll see how that unfolds in the earlier part of the season and go from there. We rate both of them very highly, and we're hoping that they're both at Essendon at the end of the year.

“We still think (those young group of players have) got a lot of talent and a lot of growth ahead. Obviously, with the changes we've made to our list, with a fair bit of experience going out, it gives a great opportunity to all those players to take the opportunity and play senior footy regularly and grow.

“From here, there's no real excuses for any of our players in terms of the development resources around them, the competition for spots and opportunity within the team.”

Looking ahead to this season, Scott has held pointed praise towards the players’ growing ownership as leaders.

With Zach Merrett and Andrew McGrath leading the way, a young midfielder has also been a standout for Scott with his attitude at training.

“Every Club’s leadership group is important, but for us it's been a real step forward because we've had a bit of a gap in terms of our leaders, and we've got a number of players stepping up in that regard.

“I've seen some poorly functioning teams and environments too, where the goal seems to be to bring down others to your level to make you feel better about yourself. My observations early on at Essendon were that it was a baseline program ‘just good enough’.

“We’ve really - led by Zach Merrett and Andy McGrath - been pushing that we come to the Club every day to get better, and every player needs to master their craft. Elijah Tsatas has just gone over and above in that space, and so far in his pre-season, his improvement’s evident for all to see.

“The other players see that, it just feeds on itself and so when we're trying to build that, it sounds cliched, but that culture of excellence and coming to the Club each day to get better, and not just ‘tick the boxes, turn up, do your program, go home’, there's a real purpose to what we're doing.”

As a cohesive unit on-field, efficiency is a key focus for Scott.

Despite massive inside 50 counts in the back half of Essendon’s 2024 season yielding few results in the final weeks of the season, he’s hopeful a renewed focus in the forward line can bring his side back to its best.

“Efficiency is the number one. I mean, that's what we're really looking to improve,” Scott said.

“Like all improvement, you're looking to maintain the things that are going reasonably well and improve in other areas.

“I think a really good example for us is that in 2023, we were quite an efficient team in terms of when we got the ball forward. We scored reasonably well, but we didn't get the ball forward anywhere near enough.

“Whereas last year, we got the ball forward as much as any team in the competition, and we kept the ball in our forward half pretty well, but we weren't very efficient from those entries. So, the holy grail is to get the ball forward a lot and score really efficiently from those entries.

“That's been the major focus but we certainly don't want to go away from volume of getting the ball forward and giving our forwards the best opportunity.”

The Dons’ final pre-season clash kicks off from 7:20pm at GMHBA Stadium on Tuesday night, with streaming available live on KAYO and Fox.

Read more about the Club’s Bomberthon/Membership Day here.