The Pit

Let me take you back to 2012 and The Dark Knight Rises

In the film, an aged and worn out Batman attempts to fight a new threat 8 years after the Joker terrorised Gotham in Bane. Batman’s reputation in Gotham has been tarnished as the city believes he killed the great public defender Harvey Dent. In attempting to fight Bane, Batman has his back broken and he is imprisoned in the Pit, a jail far below the surface. Escape is possible, but only by ascending a dangerous climb, with gaps between ledges being so far apart that they are almost impossible to jump. Many try to escape, but few succeed, not being able to make the leap at the crucial time. 

In 2026, Essendon is Batman at the bottom of the Pit. Its once mighty reputation has been tarnished. The club has been broken by insert your choice of villain here. After years of mid-table mediocrity, after countless plans and strategies have failed, and as the fanbase has descended into its own metaphorical despair, we now sit entrenched at the bottom of the ladder, having lost what many in the football community presented as a must-win game against fellow cellar dwellers the Tigers. As much as many of us would like to point to the injuries or the umpiring as playing a big part in the result, the simple fact is we are now plunging to depths as great as any in the living memory of Essendon fans. 

As much as the club talks about wanting to be successful, so often in the past the actions have more been about avoiding the situation the club finds itself in now. Essendon has spent decades trying to avoid this moment. They’ve changed coaches. Changed Presidents. Traded picks for quick-fix players. Pushed the boundaries of sport science. Focused on Football. Focused on everything but Football. Hoped for a messiah. Every attempt to climb back into contention has only resulted in falling back down towards the bottom. Too often they have taken the expedient route, thinking and hoping that just because we’re Essendon, it will work. All too often, those thoughts have been exposed as a fantasy. 

And so we find ourselves here. At the bottom of the ladder. In the deepest, darkest recesses of the pit. With a broken back. And a braying mob gleefully enjoying us at our lowest ebb. 

And once a club reaches this point, everything becomes exposed. It’s going to expose who’s there to work hard and who’s going through the motions. It will expose who will go the extra yards to improve their game and who’s looking to expand their bank balance. At its worst, it’s going to set player against player, coach against coach, fan against fan. This will be stoked by an ever more rabid media, whose raison d'etre is to feed these conflicts for clicks, outrage and relevance. 

Strangely, there is something liberating about finally hitting bottom. There can no longer be any illusion about where this club stands. No more overrating our players, no more thinking that just because we’ve won 16 premierships number 17 won’t be all that hard to get. Thinking that has only extended the mediocrity to comical levels. 

There are no easy ways out of the pit. It takes discipline, resilience, training, experimentation and courage to ascend. To rush out of the pit will only result in failure once again, thinking we’re close to the top only to tumble back towards the bottom. 

And there are glimmers that there is something to be salvaged from this time at the bottom of the pit. When the bench resembled a world war 1 casualty ward, the remaining players showed fight and determination all the way to the final siren. All year, we’ve seen young players step into roles that should be for far more experienced teammates and excel. And we’ve seen a club that is focused on bringing in and nurturing the best young talent it can get its hands on. 

In the movie, Batman takes months to heal and gain enough strength to succeed in climbing out of the Pit. He tries multiple times. He fails multiple times. But he keeps trying. Until he succeeds

In our situation, climbing out of the Pit will take far longer than a few months. It will be painful.  There will be false dawns. There will be stumbles. There will be mistakes. But if we finally recognise exactly where we are at, we can make the changes necessary to get back to the top. 

Maybe, we’re finally at the place that we need to be. 

Because when you’re at the bottom of the Pit, there’s only one way out.