{"id":40157,"date":"2021-03-01T22:16:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T23:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=40157"},"modified":"2021-03-02T05:59:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T05:59:26","slug":"dons-legends-grim-forecast-after-hurley-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=40157","title":{"rendered":"Dons legend's grim forecast after Hurley injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd<\/a> believes the hip infection ruling veteran Michael Hurley<\/a> out indefinitely could have a cascading impact on the club's season.<\/p>\n

After the departure of Joe Daniher<\/a>, Hurley was earmarked to play up forward alongside ex-Suns forward Peter Wright, before he was hospitalised last month.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old did make an appearance on the sidelines during Essendon's scratch match against Carlton, but looked a shadow of himself after losing a significant amount of weight while being bedridden for weeks.<\/p>\n

With the veteran still on crutches and the club refusing to place a time-frame on his return, there is a chance that Hurley could be sidelined for the best part of the year.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Hurley's injury means veteran Cale Hooker will be shifted up forward, leaving Essendon with an extremely inexperienced back six.<\/p>\n

"They're under pressure at both ends of the ground," Lloyd told Wide World of Sports<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"You've got Peter Wright and Hooker trying to play forward when it's not ideal for them to be the number ones (and) you've got James Stewart learning a new craft as a key defender."<\/p>\n

2021 looms as a make-or-break year for Wright, who fell out of favour at the Gold Coast after being drafted eighth overall in 2014, and Lloyd urged the 24-year-old to get more aggressive.<\/p>\n

"That's where the pressure sits, because he hasn't been quite competitive enough at AFL level," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

"He's got to get a bit more aggressive to be that replacement for Daniher in that forward line.<\/p>\n

"He needs to compete and bring the ball to ground for the likes of Devon Smith, McDonald-Tipungwuti and those types of players."<\/p>\n

The writing was on the wall for Essendon's 2021 prospects once Daniher, Adam Saad and Orazio Fantasia departed during the trade period.<\/p>\n

While all the recruitment of Giants young gun Jye Caldwell grabbed the headlines, Lloyd backed an unheralded late transaction to provide the goods for Essendon.<\/p>\n

"I don't think the ins fully replaced the outs to be honest. All the outs are match-winners, and we've seen that at the AFL level," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Jye<\/p>\n

"Nick Hind could be the big bonus of all of (the recruits). We've seen him as a forward at St Kilda, but he's playing in the half-back flank for the Bombers and he's like a Saad replacement with his ping off half-back."<\/p>\n

With skipper Dyson Heppell retreating to a halfback role in 2021, the pressure is on the likes of Caldwell and Kyle Langford to bring the grunt to Essendon's undersized midfield.<\/p>\n

Andrew McGrath, Dylan Shiel and Zach Merrett all possess the quality to be A-grade midfielders on their day, but Lloyd has one major concern about the Dons' engine room.<\/p>\n

"They've got a lot of talent in there with Shiel, Merrett and McGrath, but they're not that big, so I think they could get monstered at times by bigger midfielders," he said.<\/p>\n

"Kyle Langford and Darcy Parish, the new wave of midfielders at Essendon, become really important."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd believes the hip infection ruling veteran Michael Hurley out indefinitely could have a cascading impact on the club's season. After the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40159,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40157\/revisions\/40159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}