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Trade talk: Why Merrett should remain "optimistic" amid exit talk
Jaiden Sciberras • July 8th, 2025 5:24 pm
Should Zach Merrett consider moving on from the Essendon Football Club?
At 29 years of age, Merrett has achieved all there is to achieve within the walls of Windy Hill. A three-time All-Australian, Merrett has claimed a glut of individual honours, winning five Crichton Best and Fairest Awards, a clubman award, and an Anzac Medal all while captaining the sides for three seasons.
Outside of his individual success, Merrett’s loyalty has stripped him of the chance at a September charge.
Since being selected by the Bombers with Pick 26 in 2013, Essendon have reached the finals four times, eliminated at the first hurdle each time with an average margin of defeat at 45 points.
These of course feed into the Bombers’ extensive finals drought, having failed to win a game in September since their Elimination Final win over Melbourne in 2004.
Considering the projection of the current Bomber list, with a series of young guns set to take the reigns to lead the club from the bottom-up, should Zach Merrett consider a move elsewhere for a chance at potential success?
With just two years remaining on his current deal, taking the captain through to 31 years of age, Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd believes that nobody would blame the star midfielder if he switched his colours in the coming years.
“No one would begrudge him (if he left),” Lloyd told Footy Classified.
“I know they would internally, but the mutuals wouldn’t. Zach will win his sixth best and fairest this year and he will have achieved everything you can at the Essendon Football Club, bar play in a winning final.
“That’s what the conversations that he might think about having. We’re obviously speculating here, but that’s what you play footy for.
“Once your days are over, all you remember are those big finals you played in, nothing else. That’s what he will never ever have that memory of.”
Speaking on Merrett’s position at the club, Luke Hodge believes that as a captain, the motive should focus on driving the young team forward, looking to the areas that the team can improve in order to create those memories within the walls of his lifelong club.
“As a captain around a football club, you’ve got to be pushing out the positives,” Hodge told SEN’s Whateley.
“You’ve got to be optimistic about where we can go. All you hear externally is doom and gloom.
“At Essendon, all the injuries, apparently their medical staff - there’s been rifts with that. Internally, you’re looking at things that do go well and how you can jump back up.
“You get a lot of those players at Essendon back on the field, you get a bit of continuity, I do feel that Brad Scott has brought in some standards around professionalism which were miles apart.
“The footy trips that they went on the next year, they paid for fitness camps in the off-season, Brad Scott said about Round 17 in his first year, ‘we’re looking tired’.
“He was telling the players, ‘You are not physically ready for AFL football’. That takes time to build in.
“Get a lot of the senior players back, plus a few draft picks, and they are not far away in a positive mindset side of things.
“I know you’re sitting here going ‘they’ve waited 20-odd years to win a final’, but it doesn’t take much.
“Get some positivity, get some good leadership in that place, get a bit of luck go your way… that’s what he’ll be pushing.
“This is what, as a captain internally, you’re pushing to your team, to your players. ‘Don’t give up, keep fighting, we can improve in certain areas, and it doesn’t take much’.
“It can turn quickly if you’ve got that right mindset.”
Still playing at the peak of his powers, Merrett would be a commodity for any AFL side, averaging 28 disposals and four clearances across the season in what may be a fourth All-Australian level season.
With the Bombers in 13th place (with a game in hand on the competition), Essendon’s finals drought is destined to continue within the near future.
A contest with Richmond awaits in Round 18, with a win propelling the side into the upper shelf of the bottom nine.
