Essendon assistant answers key midfield question on three top draft picks

Published Jun 19, 2025, 8:44 AM

Essendon assistant Daniel Giansiracusa joined the Wide World of Sports team before their clash against Fremantle. 

Daniel Genis Heracuza joins us on the boundary line senior assistant coach there at the Bombers evening. Daniel, Hey, Jim, how are you good? Good luck tonight? You're a man who keeps himself in great condition. You've got that beautiful head of hair. Were you a chance mid season draft? With them all going down left, right and center there at the hangar.

Well, we did laugh about it.

Travis Kloak as well, was one, especially with his size, that we might have know's a forward in his career, but we might have been able to use him down back. So yeah, it's been a challenging period from an injury front, and apart from last week, we think the boys have really fought through that even periods last week we showed some signs, but looking to responds tonight against the Dockers.

So how do you set up the game plan? Of course, they're all in underneath you guys there, they see it each day, but they are younger. I think last week he had five or six players under five games experience. So do you need to strip it back or do you just expose the lot and hopefully they learn on the run.

Yeah, a balance of both.

I think, you know, we've been committed to you know, we're not going to put numbers behind the ball and just you know, stack the back line like that. We're going to try to stick to the style we want to play with ball in hand. We understand there's challenges with that, and we saw that against a really formidable geelongside who's organized and experience. But as I said before that in the weeks previously we've been able to really put teams to the sword in certain periods of the game, and we'll be looking to do that again tonight. And we think this will hold us in good stead, you know, into the future, because we're sticking to the style that we wanted to look like, although you know you can get punished on turnover because of that.

I just want to ask you about selection guys who have been at your club for more than a year, Perkins, Hobbs and Sarda. So you know, when I speak to a lot of Bombers fans, they're like, well, what are they or what are they going to project to be? Is there ever the temptation to go right? We need to find out as well. Just using one of those names, give midfield for the next four to five weeks and we're really going to find out or there's selection still overright.

No, it's something we definitely discuss in match committee.

The one area in our in our side that has still got the depth is the midfield. So when you talk about Hobbes, perkinsartis you know, who do you push out sort of thing that's sort of the response to that.

You know, a couple of guys.

Of those guys, especially Perkins and Hobbes, we've tried to expose to different positions and that'll continue tonight. But there has been a couple that are unlucky in Sardis and Shield just because you can only.

Play four inside mids.

So we constantly discussed that and we'll keep assessing that throughout the year.

But as it's it's you know the merit.

Martin Cetterfield has been doing an outstanding job, Parish has come back, and call Well's been really good from a cold face point of view. So we're trying to balance that each week, which is a challenge for those guys that you mentioned that are missing out, but we'll keep working through that as the year progresses.

Dan tell us about the young man who's found himself a spot tonight in Vigo Versentini. I know he's had some great form in the VFL debutante number eleven for your team this year. Probably not the position you thought you'd be in, but just let us know what we can expect from him.

Yeah, it's a great story.

He's playing some awesome footy VFL level, probably the form ruckman at that level. There is a big gap between VFL and AFL, especially from a rock point of view or key position point of view. But he's put amount of work together. Obviously, with our situation of Draper and Brian unavailable and Goldstein being thirty six or seven, we always knew that we were going to have to rest Goldie at some stage. It's coming a good time with regards to the buy and it's a great opportunity for Vego. And he's quite athletic. He'll get across the ground really well. He's good a really and you know he'll take it out of his two hundred and four. So you know, with them leaving Darcy out, he's got a bit of a high advent in Jovia Jackson.

Obviously he's really athletic, but it's.

Great challenge for him, will support him and looking forward to what he can produce for us tonight.

AG it's Nick Newman here mate, just on Zach Merritt obviously seen him at half back a little bit in recent times and then last week more.

In the midfield.

How do you go about to sign that because on one hand down back he helps you get out of trouble with his elite kicking, but you obviously take away probably some of his inside fifties, which is deliveries as good as anyone. I assume match committee there's probably a few arm wrestlers between the backs coach and the mid's coach around where he plays.

Yeah, he's very versatile gior which is a positive for us. It was circumstance why he put him at half back. You know, he's probably in all Australian form as a midfielder, but just because of the shortage of availability in our back line, we explored that over a couple of week periods. Then Sam Durham went out last week, so slotting back into the midfield. He'll play in the midfield tonight and you know that's his best spot I think, But just with the situation.

We've had to be quite flexible.

He's been outstanding from a leadership point of view about just tell me where you want me to play, and I'll try and support everyone around me.

And you know we will need him to beat.

His best tonight because you know he's he's one team the opposition goes after. Obviously, you guys went after him from a from a take him out of the game point of view with the Blues. But you know we've got different leaders we can pull and we'll definitely be doing that tonight to get him in the best position to be able to, as you said, enter the ball inside fifty and connect with those younger forwards.

Geah, you started to touch on it before. You know, you want to expose the guys or you know, play the way that you want to play going forward, you know, not just park the bus. You know in the back fifty? What does it look like for Bombers fans? So all the cattle is there and you're rattling off a couple of wins in a row, and everybody's up and about what does it look like from from your point of view?

I think you know, first and foremost it's contest and we've been pretty strong in that area. From a stoppage point of view, and then you know it's defense and being really stable behind the ball.

But from that we want to counter and you.

Know, I think it's something we've continually worked on and the ball miment side of the game is probably the most challenging, especially with a younger side. But you know that's pretty much in that order that we set the game up. We'll try to do that tonight against Freemale, but we want to attack them when we win the ball back. Unfortunately last week we just gave it back to Geelong in dangerous positions and with what they've got in the front half, they expose that.

But we'll keep taking the game on.

You know, we want to challenge with some run from behind and use the corridor and get it into our forwards quickly, and that's constantly evolving as the year's gone on. Sometimes we've had good looks at it, other times it's been a challenge and we'll keep working through that.

Yeah, I shared many a beer with you at Christmas parties going back in the day, and your name is Connor's Christmas a very famous and you were never great about talking about your helf. You always like to deflect the team and you're doing this and doing that well as a coach, being a senior assistant coach, a senior coach, my apologies your senior assistant at the moment, still got ambitions to lead your own team, your own club.

Yeah, I definitely do, you know, and you know, I got some great opportunities with the Bulldogs, you know, different lines coach mind side from a VFL point of view, and now under Brad's Tulidge learning so much. Main focus is to get the Bombers up the top of the ladder and succeeding.

But I love my job.

I love coming in every day, even when there is challenges, and working with the players and seeing that come out on game day.

And yeah that hasn't changed.

This is my tenth or eleventh year now, so but yeah, definitely got aspirations to be a senior coach down the track.

Yeah, hopefully not too far distant future.

And obviously we wish you all the best tonight, Nora's guys, thanks very much for having me