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The Zach Merrett Trade - The Case For and Against

  • Ian Hume
  • 7 hours ago
  • 10 min read

Updated: 26 minutes ago

The next few weeks of the Trade period are going to be dominated with talk of Zach Merrett, how hard he is pushing for a trade, whether Hawthorn can come up with a satisfactory package for him and whether Essendon will even entertain a trade of their best player of the last decade.


At Don The Stat, we’ve compiled the arguments for and against trading Merrett from the perspective of the Essendon football club. Read on and let us know your perspective at the end.



The Case For Essendon Trading Zach Merrett


It is often said that the Chinese have the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity. Whilst this isn’t actually the case, what many in the media are suggesting as a massive crisis for the Essendon Football club with the supposed departure of Zach Merrett to Hawthorn is actually a fantastic opportunity for Essendon to accelerate their already developing rebuild and commit to a new direction which could ultimately lead to the success that Essendon fans have craved for so long.


Let’s acknowledge that this situation is not ideal. Zach has been our best player for close on a decade. With the way he prepares he could continue performing at a high level for another half decade at least, well within the point that Essendon would be looking to compete for flags. To lose him would be a setback to where we would want to be heading.


But as said at the start of this argument, every crisis brings opportunity. And there are just as many opportunities that would be created by the departure of Zach this year as problems


As a player, it is unlikely that we would be able to replace Zach’s ball use immediately. That would hurt our side in the short term. But our reliance on Zach has meant that other players may have been missing out on opportunities. Elijah Tsatas does not have Zach’s ball skills. But he has other qualities which few players in the league possess, especially in being able to win first possession of the ball. Zach’s departure opens up a space where we could make use of Tsatas’ abilities and change the way we go about things. Similarly, over the past couple of seasons we have been prioritising ball use in the players that we have drafted, with Kako, Clarke and Johnson all demonstrating a high ceiling in terms of ball skills. Losing Zach’s skill at this time might not have the same impact that it may have as few as one or two seasons ago.


Zach certainly has a lot of great qualities as a leader and captain. He sets training and preparation standards better than anyone at the club. He sets the standards on-field every game and works as hard defensively as offensively. In a different team, one that was at the pointy end of the competition, Zach would be a perfect captain. However, our circumstances are very different. We are a young, developing squad that needs a lot of direct onfield leadership to aid it in its development. For all his good qualities, I’m not sure Zach is the type of captain that will work best with this type of group. Zach has spoken about how his captaincy this year, with the amount of young players that had to be integrated into the team, had to shift from focusing on performance to focusing on support, which seemed like a challenge for him. Compare this audio of Zach Mic’ed up in game in 2023 to the way that Andy McGrath interacted with his young teammates when he took the reins in 2025 against St Kilda. A change in leadership styles could be of benefit for our young squad and help accelerate our growth.


It’s not the first time that Zach has been tempted to leave the Bombers and, as things have come out over the past few weeks, it seems that in most years he’s been considering his future at the Dons. With where the club is, we need people who are fully committed and don’t constantly have one foot out the door. We also have the most leverage to get the best return for Zach than we will have at any stage for the remainder of his contract. Waiting until next year or even 2027, where the ability to get the most out of drafting and trading is going to be severely compromised by the entrance of Tasmania will not serve the club well.


The draft capital we get for Merrett this year could allow us to trade up for West Coast’s pick 1, which there have been suggestions might be available, to get a Willem Duursma, the player in the draft pool with the most obvious A-Grade potential, whilst also maintaining draft capital to take other top 10 picks in areas of need, such as a Robey or a Lindsay.


Whilst there might be a temptation to hold Zach to his contract in the hope that things can be turned around across the 2026 season, the reality will be that the entire narrative around the Bombers will be about where Zach is at and whether he is going to leave at the end of 2026. It would be a media circus that would come up in every interview, press conference and conversation with players, coaches and administrators at the Bombers. With a young, developing list, this has the potential to derail an entire season and delay our development as a side. Better to cut the cord now and get clean air for 2026 rather than having a wasted year where the focus is on Zach, not Essendon’s exciting young core.


And then there is the impact on the rest of the playing group. It’s clear that the revelation that Zach had met with Mitchell hurt his teammates, as we saw with what Redman, Martin and McGrath came out with in the media in the days following. Most of Zach’s close friends have already left the club, meaning there’s an even bigger gap between himself and the rest of the playing group. The tension that having Zach around amongst the group based on his actions could also distract from what the team is trying to do, as every action of Zach’s and interaction with his teammates will be scrutinised to the nth degree. A successful year on field could paper over those cracks, but given where Essendon is coming from, it is unlikely and as such provides a further distraction that does not benefit the club or the playing list in anyway.


As much as I would like to stick it to the Hawks and not allow him to be traded, the reality is that making this painful experience as short as possible by trading Zach is vastly superior to letting it hang over the club for a season. As such, as long as the deal is a reasonable one that Essendon can benefit from, 2025 should be the last year that Zach Merrett pulls on the red and black. And if the Bombers play their cards right, it could be the making of something very special.


The Case Against Essendon Trading Zach Merrett


It’s been a very emotional time for Essendon fans since the revelation that our captain Zach Merrett had met with the coach of Hawthorn and was pushing for a trade to our Arch-Rivals. For many fans, it’s one of the biggest betrayals of a fan base by a player that can be remembered and many have already written Zach’s Essendon eulogy and cut the cord on that long-term relationship. But the Essendon Football Club needs to make the best decision for them, not for Merrett and certainly not for the Hawks. Which is why they cannot possibly trade Zach this off-season.


Let's start with the obvious. The club, across two presidents in the past few weeks, have explicitly stated that he is not for trade. Whilst many might see this as a negotiating tactic, this is a line in the sand moment for the club. One where we stop being pushed around and really send a message about what the Essendon Football Club should be. Part of that is holding people to their word. Zach chose to take the security of the long term deal. He chose to accept renegotiations of his contract that increased his pay. He chose to be the leader of this football club. That comes with expectations and responsibilities and Essendon is well within their rights to hold Zach to the agreements that he has signed up for.


Secondly, Essendon in 2025 was already one of the least experienced teams in the competition. With Goldstein, Shiel and Laverde already confirmed as departing, we have a serious lack of experienced players around the group. We have seen with teams like North Melbourne how challenging it can be to get out of the hole when you cut your list too deep in terms of experience. If Merrett was to depart, just from the four players mentioned alone, that would be 975 games of experience departing the Bombers alone. It would also mean that we wouldn’t have any player north of 29 on the list. We’ve seen that, for the most part, the teams that cut too deep have a real difficult time getting back to a competitive level- this is the danger we could face by going through with this trade.


Thirdly, as a fanbase we have already lamented the lack of A-Grade talent on our list, especially compared to other teams. For many years, it’s been Zach and then daylight in terms of player quality at Essendon. There is no guarantee that any player on Essendon’s list will reach the same level of player that Zach is in the near term, especially with Nic Martins injury probably seeing him not be able to reach that level until 2027 at the earliest. We’ve seen with the AFL in the modern era that the best players, due to improvements in sports science and understanding of how players prepare, can maintain an elite level of performance well into their 30s. Zach screams the type of player that will keep this level of performance up for 3 or 4 years at least. You don’t get better by letting A-Grade talent walk out of your club.


Fourthly, Zach does not strike the type of player that will spend the year sulking if he is not traded. He is such a competitor that he would not allow himself to perform at any less than his best if he is still at Essendon in 2026. It’s almost certain that he won’t be captain next year, but Zach’s best leadership traits were always the standards he set in terms of effort on field and in training and preparing for games. He doesn’t need the C next to his name to be able to provide that leadership to the group. As such a young side, having that example showing them how to go about things is crucial for the development of those players in reaching the standard we require if we are going to be an elite side.


People will point to the last time we held a player that clearly wanted to be traded, with Essendon holding Joe Daniher to his contract in 2019 despite him wanting to go to Sydney, only for him to leave at the end of 2020, getting less compensation than we could have if we traded at the end of 2019, and fear that that will just happen again in 2026 with Zach once again asking to leave. But there are enough differences in those circumstances to mean that they are not actually similar. Joe wanting to leave had more to do with the injuries he was dealing with and wanting to get out of the Melbourne bubble. Zach is basically never injured and wants to move to another Melbourne side, the opposite of Joe's situation. Also importantly, when Joe wanted to move in 2019 he only had one year remaining on his deal. Zach has two, and is not a free agent until 2027, where circumstances could be vastly different. And, Joe’s final year played out in th Covid bubble, a situation which only exacerbated existing issues. 2026 (fingers crossed) won’t have that sort of external disruption that prevented us from turning Joe around, much like Sydney was able to do with players like Ryan O’Keefe or Tom Papley. A year is a long time, and two years is even more to change the fortunes of the club in a way that would encourage Zach to stay at the end of his contract.


The other thing that must be considered is the level of compensation that could be provided. Every player has a price, and I’m sure if someone somehow rolled up to the Pies with a guarantee of the next 5 number 1 picks that they would have their heads turned about trading Nick Daicos. But as it stands, how can the Hawks satisfy the Bombers in any trade? As much as they want a player like Zach to give them the boost they need to win a flag, he is worth far more to the bombers for the reasons outlined above. Their current pick of number 8, which will be pushed back at least 4 or 5 spots depending on compensation picks and bids on NGA players, is in a supposedly weak draft. Their future firsts, if they perform at the level they expect and with more NGA AND the Tasmanian picks in 2027, are likely to be mid 20s at best. The players from Hawthorn that we would want in compensation that could move the needle for us are likely off the table for the Hawks to move on. Any trade probably needs a third party, but Essendon is already flush with picks in this draft - they would want players, and players that would project as top 50 in the comp over the next few years to replace the output of Zach. How many players like that would A) other clubs be prepared to move on and B) would be prepared to come to Essendon? I expect that number is close to 0. Therefore, there’s almost no way that Essendon can have their expectations for any trade met, which means that the best outcome for the Bombers is to keep Zach.


And even if a trade could be satisfied, you’d be giving a side that, if things go well, are only a couple of years ahead of us in competing for a premiership. There’s a very real scenario that a Hawthorn that is pushing for flags comes up against a developing Bombers pushing for Premiership success in 2027/2028. Why would you give a team that you would be expecting to face in a finals series your best player, giving them more of a chance of progressing in the finals series than you?


In essence, the decision to not trade Zach Merrett comes down to 6 words.


F*** Hawthorn and F*** Sam Mitchell.



What do you think? Where do you stand on whether Zach should be traded or not?

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