Essendon great Matthew Lloyd says he doesn’t want to hear any excuses coming out of his former club surrounding its lacklustre start to 2022.
Having scraped into the finals last season, the Bombers’ hopes of repeating those efforts look to be a long shot now following a 1-5 start to the year.
Prior to Essendon’s Anzac Day loss to Collingwood on Monday, the club’s head of football Josh Mahoney raised eyebrows with comments suggesting the “developing team” overachieved last season.
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“Maybe in some ways we did overachieve last year,” Mahoney said on 3AW. “We got into the finals with 11 wins, which probably hadn’t happened for 15 years, it was a funny season.
“We just know we’re on a path to be good. We want to be good, we know it’s going to take a while.
“We’re still a developing team. We spoke a lot about that last year and we still speak about that this year. We’re probably younger this year, but it certainly doesn’t mean it’s an excuse for us.”
A season without finals football this year will only continue the club’s brutal trend of not winning a finals game since 2004.
Responding to Mahoney’s comments, Lloyd agreed that the excuse over Essendon’s failures this year for being a young and developing team was a “cop out” by the club’s football boss.
“I think it is [a cop out] because Essendon hasn’t won a final for that long, that you continue to get draft picks,” Lloyd said on Nine’s Footy Classified.
“When is the right time? I think they’ve had long enough now to be challenging.
“Last year we debated this, and you (Caroline Wilson) scoffed at what I said, that the worst thing that could potentially happen was them playing a final because they think the next year it just happens [again].”
Lloyd, a five-time All-Australian and 12-time leading goalkicker at Essendon, conceded his former club “should’ve” missed the finals last year.
“I think you recruit in a certain way, you think in a final way – eighth against ninth is so different,” he added.
“Eighth you make it and go ‘geez, we’re going pretty well’.
“Ninth and it’s scathing, you’re brutal on what you do. I thought that’s where they should’ve been, rather than getting that taste of finals.”
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