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Stolen prime: Former Don’s biggest supplements saga regret
SEN • August 3rd, 2025 5:30 pm
Former Essendon star David Zaharakis never got the chance to compete for a premiership during his time at the club.
While he played 226 games in the red and black from 2009 to 2021, he only featured in three finals, all of which he lost.
Zaharakis believes Essendon’s best chance of making a dint in September was from 2013 to 2016.
Unfortunately, it was those years when the club’s supplement saga reared its head. The club was kicked out of the 2013 finals despite finishing 7th, while 34 players were later suspended for the entire 2016 season.
Even though Zaharakis wasn’t one of the players banned, he believes that the chaos and instability surrounding the supplements saga cost him and other teammates around his age of having a real chance to compete in the prime of his career, something he believes the club was set up to do.
“The other side of it, for anyone who was around my age like Michael Hurley and David Myers, it ruined the prime of our careers at AFL footy,” Zaharakis told This is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.
“We didn’t have a chance to win a premiership or have stability at the club between the ages of 23 to 27 really.
“2017 was the year Woosha (John Worsfold) came in and the list returned to somewhat normalcy. So that 2013, ’14, ’15 and ’16, which was the prime of our career, we didn’t have a chance to compete as a footy club for a chance at success.
“Our list in 2013, ’14 and ’15 was built to win a flag, we were playing off for top spot in Round 18 of 2013, so our list was clearly a good enough side.
“Then everything fell away. We weren’t just dealing with the drug stuff, but we just weren’t able to compete.
“After Round 18, we got told we were getting kicked out of finals… we lost our last six games… it was a bad spiral to get into.”
At the start of 2013, all of Paddy Ryder, Cale Hooker, Tom Bellchambers, Michael Hibberd, Myers, Zaharakis, Hurley, Jake Carlisle, Jake Melksham and Dyson Heppell were aged 24 and under.
Zaharakis opened up on this topic and much more in this week’s episode.
Listen to Zaharakis’ full chat with Sam Edmund below.
