Latest news with #ZachReid
News.com.au
08-07-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Defender Zach Reid sent for surgery as injuries hit Essendon, Sydney hard
Essendon opted for season-ending surgery to repair luckless defender Zach Reid's troublesome hamstring to give him the best chance of a 'full recovery'. The Bombers have been hit harder than most teams by injury in 2025 and have also sent midfielder Jye Caldwell under the knife to repair his syndesmosis injury. Reid got Essendon fans excited this season after stringing together 10 games, having played just eight since being drafted in 2020 amid countless injury issues, and he was given a three-year contract extension. But after experiencing some hamstring awareness towards the end of last Wednesday's main training session, follow-up scans confirmed a minor strain. After consulting specialists, surgery was deemed the best option, ending Reid's season. Essendon football boss Daniel McPherson is disappointed about the latest setback for Reid but confident in what the future holds for him. 'It's a tough blow for 'Reidy' to be ruled out for the year. However, we believe the surgical option offers him the best chance for a full recovery,' McPherson said. 'He's demonstrated exactly why he's so highly rated during the first 11 games this season. He remains a key part of our future.' Caldwell suffered his syndesmosis injury late in the fourth term of Saturday's loss to the Gold Coast Suns when his ankle was caught beneath him in a tackle. He will have surgery in the coming days with a return-to-play timeline yet to be determined. Youngster Nik Cox was also ordered by the AFL's concussion panel to stand down for the rest of 2025 as part of a return to play program. Meanwhile, Sydney's hopes of making a run to the finals have been hit hard, losing key forward Joel Amartey for 8-12 weeks with a high-grade adductor strain and Tom Papley will miss 2-3 weeks with a hamstring injury. Both injuries were sustained in Sunday's win over Fremantle that pushed last year's grand finalists to 10th on the ladder with a 7-9 record.
7NEWS
07-07-2025
- Sport
- 7NEWS
Senior Essendon players ‘losing faith' with high-performance team amid injury crisis
There is growing unrest among senior Essendon players at the mounting injury toll that could see players leave the club, according to 7NEWS chief AFL reporter Mitch Cleary. The Bombers have been hit hard by injuries this year, which has prompted a probe into the alarming situation. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Their already bulging injury list grew over the weekend with Jye Caldwell set to under surgery after suffering an ankle injury in the loss to Gold Coast. The club also ruled out Zach Reid for the remainder of the season after opting to undergo surgery on his troublesome hamstring. That was the latest in a long list of soft-tissue injuries this year that includes Kyle Langford, Darcy Parish, Mason Redman, Xavier Duursma, Matt Guelfi, Jordan Ridley and Archie Perkins. Plus there is also the unfortunate season-ending injuries to Sam Draper, Nick Bryan, Lewis Hayes and Tom Edwards. But it was a costly Saturday training session during their bye that has resulted in players 'losing faith in the high-performance department', according to Cleary. 'It's my belief that a number of players have led concerns off the back of this Saturday session two weeks ago where they picked up three fresh soft-tissue injuries,' Cleary said on The Agenda Setters. 'Three repeat soft tissue injuries. So Kyle Lankford, Darcy Parrish and Mason Redman off the back of that. And then just last week they picked up the Zach Reid injury.' Langford has managed just six senior games this year and could potentially be lured away if an offer came. 'It's my understanding that if a club was to come for a player like Kyle Lankford, who has two years left on a lucrative contract at the age of 28, he would look twice at an offer from a rival club, given the frustration that has been stemming off the back of this and the repeat soft tissue injuries they've picked up,' Cleary continued. 'This is not a recent thing. This has been going for some time, but it really has ramped up since that Saturday session two weeks ago.' Channel 7 commentator Nick Riewoldt said that training session 'raised eyebrows' at the time. 'You think about bye weeks, it's an opportunity to freshen the group up, get players right, get them through another week of the season,' he said. 'What was the nature of the session? Like, what did they actually do?' Cleary said the session was always planned, according to the club. 'There's been conjecture on whether this session was planned or not. I've spoken to the club tonight and they're adamant that this was always in the diary for them to come back from the bye on Friday, have a light session, then train fully on Saturday,' he said. 'But the rehab guys have been at the club all week. They didn't have a bye week as such. So the club is standing by the fact this has been in the diary for some time. But there has been conjecture from some parts around how hard and how much of this was planned.' Riewoldt worries about how the club can get the players back onside. 'When player unrest starts to fester around a department of the football club that you rely so heavily on as a player, I mean, you turn yourself over to the football club as a player, don't you?' he said. 'You say, turn me into a machine that can go out and deliver high-intensity football every week. And when it starts to go pear-shaped and the frustration starts to brew, it's very hard to get them back.' The Agenda Setters host Craig Hutchison suggested the club are 'sitting ducks' for rivals to raid. 'It's an obvious pitch, a wildebeest theory. You're going to raid the weak. There's an obvious pitch here that we can get your body right,' he said. 'Sam Draper will be one that will be getting that pitch from Brisbane and others at the moment. The other thing is, how do you pitch a Harley Reid or someone in? Panellist Kane Cornes said the Bombers are facing the 'biggest challenge of any club.' 'There is some serious problems going on at that footy club,' he said. 'If you're saying that a player (Langford) that kicked 51 goals in 2023 and looked like their most or was their most dangerous forward, he's in the prime of his career, cannot get on the park. 'I mean, Brisbane are saying, well, we've got Joe Danaher, right? Give us an opportunity to get you right, because we think you can be our best forward if they can sell it that way.' Cleary also revealed the club will spend $1.2m on resurfacing both of their ovals.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Gun Bombers defender sent for scans on hamstring
On the cusp of returning from injury, ace Essendon defender Zach Reid has been sent for scans after feeling tightness in his hamstring. Sidelined with a hamstring strain for the past five weeks, the highly rated but injury-prone Reid had been pressing his case for selection. But after training fully at Tullamarine on Wednesday, the 23-year-old experienced tightness late in the session and has gone for scans. The latest news on the injury front as we get ready to face the SUNS.@Homedics — Essendon FC (@essendonfc) July 1, 2025 Reid has suffered a difficult start to his AFL career after being drafted with pick 10 in 2020. He had been restricted to just nine games across his first four seasons, but had been enjoying a breakout year before being injured in the Dreamtime win against Richmond six weeks ago. Reid's setback comes after Essendon's bye week was blighted by injuries on the training track to Mason Redman, Darcy Parish and Kyle Langford. Redman (hamstring) will miss at least this Saturday's clash with Gold Coast at Marvel Stadium, but Parish (calf) and Langford (quad) have been ruled out indefinitely. Fourteen players were on the Bombers' injury update, released on Tuesday, with four of them out for the season. Before training on Wednesday, Essendon coach Brad Scott attempted to focus on the positives instead of the dire state of their injury list. "We're just in a situation at the moment where we've just got to roll on," Scott said. "We'll select 23 fit and very capable players this weekend. "That's the thing about the headlines, 'injury crisis' and all these things. "I guarantee you it's not a crisis to those players who are on the fringes. "It's an opportunity to put their name up in lights and get their opportunity. "It's clearly not ideal, we'd love to have better availability, but we've had players emerge who wouldn't have had their opportunity otherwise."
Herald Sun
29-05-2025
- Sport
- Herald Sun
Brisbane Lions v Essendon AFL Round 12: Live updates, SuperCoach scores, teams
Essendon's reshuffled defence will face a huge test of its mettle when the Bombers take on Brisbane in the opening game of round 12. Follow all the action and SuperCoach news in the live blog below from 6.30pm. Essendon has lost Zach Reid (hamstring) and Ben McKay (foot) to injuries, leaving it with a tall order to stay in touch with the top eight with a victory at the Gabba. One of the keys will be quelling Lachie Neale, who boasts a formidable SuperCoach record against the Bombers including scores of 166 and 198 in his last three. Essendon skipper Zach Merrett has been a popular trade-in this week and his new owners will be hoping for a big start to the round. Originally published as Brisbane Lions v Essendon AFL Round 12: Live updates, SuperCoach scores, teams
ABC News
11-05-2025
- Sport
- ABC News
Reid's arrival can supercharge Bomber rebuild … what we learned from round nine
Zach Reid continues to announce himself as one of the best young defenders in the AFL, a fascinating ruck battle leaves questions for St Kilda, and Collingwood proves why its system is the best in the competition. Here's what we learned from round nine of the AFL season. Any discussions around drafts are usually a touchy subject for Essendon fans due to the staggering number of misses over the past two decades. One class in particular, that of 2020, is a polarising topic. The Bombers had three top 10 picks in that draft and walked away with three players — Nik Cox, Archie Perkins and Zach Reid. While other players from that class, namely Riley Thilthorpe (pick 2), Max Holmes (pick 20) and Errol Gulden (pick 32) have kicked on and become stars of the competition, the Bombers have been waiting for their trio to hit their straps. Cox started the brightest and Perkins has played the most games of the trio, but many around the club have long believed Reid, who has played the least, will end up being the best player. It has been a hard graft for Reid, whose career has been halted by multiple injuries, but he is finally putting together some football and quickly showing why Essendon has been willing to play the long game with him. Reid has played eight straight games to start this season, incredibly the longest stretch of games in his four-year career to date. Saturday's 27-disposal, 14-mark effort against the Swans was by far the best of the lot. The Bombers stopped in their tracks for the second straight week after a bright first half, and as the Swans pushed in the final quarter, Reid stood up tall. Reid took five intercept marks throughout the contest, all with varying degrees of difficulty. There were the easy ones where he gobbled up haphazard kicks inside 50 from Sydney, tougher ones where he withstood heavy contact to take a big pack mark. But one stood out in which he ran back with the flight of the ball to take it over his shoulder. It was so special that the master of running back with the flight of the ball — Brisbane great Jonathan Brown — stopped commentating the live action as it happened on Fox Footy so he could talk about the mark itself. Reid looked like someone who hadn't played AFL football in a long time in his first two matches this season, but in the weeks that have followed, not only is he getting acclimatised to the pace of the game, but he is growing more confidence in his body with every crunching hit he withstands in a marking contest. Reid isn't just an intercept threat either. He racked up 451 metres against the Swans, mostly using incisive kicks out of Essendon's back 50. In a side that is largely devoid of elite ball users by foot, he sticks out like a sore thumb. There has been great debate over what exactly constitutes a pass mark for the Bombers this season, Brad Scott's third in charge. Getting 20 or more games into Reid will go a long way to making it a positive season. Essendon is still ages away, but players like Reid can shorten the timeline in a hurry, particularly when paired with an equally exciting tall at the other end of the ground in Nate Caddy. All the great sides have strong spines, and the Bombers are building theirs with Caddy and Reid as the bookends. Friday night's clash between St Kilda and Carlton was dubbed by some as the TDK Cup due to the two clubs' bidding war over Blues ruckman Tom De Koning. De Koning is out of contract with the Blues at the end of the year, and the Saints have reportedly handed him the football equivalent of a blank cheque to pledge his future to Moorabbin. Carlton wants him to stay, but is well aware he could walk, given the Blues have their own cap constraints. There is only one problem, the Saints already have a really good ruckman in Rowan Marshall, who is signed through the end of the 2027 season. De Koning is four years younger than Marshall and is an upgrade, he is arguably the best ruckman in the competition in the non-Max Gawn division, but the duel between the two men begged the question as to whether the Saints really needed an upgrade in the ruck stocks. The Saints are quite clearly big game hunting, and have been for the best part of 12 months. They attempted to turn Essendon skipper Zach Merrett's head with an offer so big that Merrett, the most loyal of players, needed to sit down with his partner to talk about it. They chased Finn Callaghan, who said no and signed a monster deal to stay with the Giants himself. De Koning is seemingly the next cab off the rank. If De Koning says yes to the Saints, he'll walk in as the club's highest-paid player. A look at the ruckmen in recent premiership sides, sans Gawn with Melbourne in 2021, suggests blowing large portions of your salary cap on rucks isn't really all that wise. Collingwood realised this barely 12 months after giving Brodie Grundy, an excellent two-time All-Australian big man, a monster seven-year, $7 million deal. They flipped Grundy to use the cap space elsewhere, filled the ruck spot with Darcy Cameron, a less sexy ruck option, and won a premiership 12 months later. It was interesting to watch Marshall play with an extra layer of meanness than usual against De Koning. Every contest between the two had an air of "good luck taking my job" about it from the Saints ruckman. De Koning had the better game, but Marshall wasn't too far behind at all, and the game was a microcosm of where the two ruckmen's careers currently stand. The Saints have a big contract call pending with Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera as well, who is also out of contract and wants to be remunerated in a way that reflects his status as one of the best players on the team. Is it worth pricing yourself out of the Wanganeen-Milera business because you finally got a big fish to say yes? That's the question Saints bosses must ask themselves. A sensational first couple of months has Collingwood deservedly sitting among the league's premiership favourites, but Thursday's win over Fremantle in Perth might have been the biggest statement yet. How many other clubs would boldly decide to go to Perth, still the most daunting road trip in the AFL, while choosing to rest four first-choice players? Yes, Craig McRae suggested Brayden Maynard and Brody Mihocek were dealing with a few ailments, but had this match been a final, they would have played. So too would Jordan De Goey and Scott Pendlebury. Not only were the Pies undermanned, they came up against a Fremantle side in dire need of a response at home. What ensued was another reminder that Collingwood will be incredibly hard to beat at the pointy end of the year. Australian rules football isn't like basketball or the world game, it is harder to plug and play due to the sheer number of players there are on the field. With a larger amount of players comes a larger chance for things to go wrong if guys aren't on the same page. What Collingwood did against Fremantle was the finest example of plug-and-play that you're ever likely to see. Pendlebury and De Goey are two of the Magpies' top six centre bounce players so far this season. With the pair out, Craig McRae put ironman Jack Crisp into the coalface and it yielded instant positive results. Crisp attended 61 per cent of the Pies' centre bounces against Fremantle, by far his highest of the season (his previous high was 13 per cent against the Swans in round five), and responded with 29 disposals and seven clearances, the most by any Collingwood player. The Magpies are now in year four of the McRae era and clearly have supreme confidence in what he preaches. They are able to adjust on the fly, pardon the pun, better than any other team in the competition. Each player not only knows their own role, but their teammate's role as well, allowing the Pies to shapeshift throughout a contest as much as the game deems necessary. It is why they regularly prevail in close games.
