While there were smiles all round, none of the new Bombers are under any illusions about the how tough the journey ahead will be but coach Sheedy believes the players’ background will enable them to handle the pressures. ""They have all played some senior football and that is important – they have played against men,"" Sheedy said.
""They have played senior footy in Adelaide and Tasmania. They played for Sturt and West Adelaide. One's won the Magarey Medal and the other boy's played senior footy down in Tasmania. So every one of these players here has played against men so they're probably a step ahead in regards to experience already.""
""I think the one thing we've probably found in our draft is competitors and I think that is really important to bring into the club - a group of players that really want to play league footy and are very desperate to make it. They want to get on the first plane over and start training. That was the sort of attitude we looked for and plus, let's face it, they're very good players who have played men's footy and not many of the guys in the under 18s play men's footy.""
Sheedy said nothing should be read into the fact Essendon’s four recruits came from outside Victoria. But he did point out the Bombers’ had developed quite a connection with South Australia – the most recent coming via Sean Wellman.
""(Steve) Copping and (Paul) Weston … Antrobus, all those boys were from South Australia,"" Sheedy said. ""I think in the end that's just the way the draft panned out. Sometimes that happens and at the moment you'd have to say we haven't picked a Victorian and that's quite unusual.""
Sheedy is impressed with the build of young Tasmanian Andrew Lee and believes Essendon’s tall stocks are now in a very healthy shape.
""The big boy Lee's from Tassie and we like a Tasmanian. We think he could be a pretty good player for us and if we can get Laycock up and young Kepler Bradley, we will have done pretty well in that height department,"" he said.
""We're drafting late all the time recently unless we trade a good player out of the place. I think in the end that we wanted to just pick up one or two of these guys who could come into the senior team fairly quickly if they're good enough and if they perform well.
""These players are capable of doing that whereas sometimes you might pick players in a draft who are two or three years away. These players who are close add a lot of pressure and that is what we want to create in the footy department in regard to players who are hungry to make it and hungry to have success.
""When you lose three terrific players like Joe Misiti, Mark Mercuri and Sean Wellman we need these guys knocking on the door straight away. We've had a couple of players here in the last year or two that have got games simply because injury forced us to pick them.
""Now everyone in the team has got to earn their spot and that's pretty handy to have, instead of losing three or four out with a hamstring or a quad. These guys are pretty fit and very good athletes and we've still got a lot of good players at Essendon that a lot of people haven't seen of late, players like a Joel Reynolds or Jobe Watson who started to come on last year. Hopefully Bradley and Laycock will come on and put a lot of pressure on around the club and on the other boys who have been here for a while.""
