Essendon GM of List and Recruiting Adrian Dodoro has credited senior coach John Worsfold with fostering the growth of the club’s strong crop of promising young players.
Dodoro joined club legend Kevin Sheedy and new recruit Dylan Shiel On the Amart Couch this week as the club announced a five-year partnership with Amart Furniture, and he took the opportunity to praise Worsfold’s leadership.
Dodoro and his team have been lauded for impressive draft selections and key trade period additions to the squad in recent years, but he says Worsfold’s efforts and planning have played a key role in the development of the side.
“Woosha deserves a lot of the credit, because he’s been really patient with these players, he’s developed them extremely well and he’s plotted a path for all these boys, so he makes my job really easy,” Dodoro said.
“The recruiting team (also deserves credit) – I’m only as good as my team – and obviously I got mentored and tutored by this guy (Kevin Sheedy) for a long, long time.
“It’s not just one person putting it all together and Woosha’s played a massive part over the last three years of working with us, about identifying players and about putting a development plan in place to see these guys grow.”
Dodoro said his excitement about the club’s future wasn’t just restricted to a string of impressive performances in the senior side from some of Essendon’s most encouraging youngsters this year.
“One of the most pleasing things for us was watching our VFL team this year,” he said.
“There were certainly three or four players in our VFL team this year that we think have got great careers ahead at the club.
“The entire coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for the way they’ve nurtured and developed these guys and I think they’ve got opportunities to grow.”
With the NAB AFL Draft just three weeks away, attention will once again turn to Dodoro and his recruiting team.
Essendon is unlikely to have a selection until pick 34 in the national draft, but Dodoro is confident the depth of this year’s draft contingent will allow the club to find a quality new Bomber with its first pick.
“I think that we’ve got a pretty good balance now (in the squad), so we’ll probably look for the best available talent,” Dodoro said.
“We think that there’ll be a few good players in this draft, even though we come in at (selection) 34, we think that we’ll hopefully get a really, really good player.
“We’re not quite sure yet who that will be, obviously, but it it’s a midfielder or a ruckman we’d be happy with that.”
