LANGFORD + ZERK-THATCHER: AN APPRECIATION PIECE

Kyle Langford has been enjoying his best season in front of goal.

If we were to go back only a few years, it would be hard to fathom how important Kyle Langford and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher have become to the Essendon Football Club.

From barely borderline first-22 selections to being easily two of the team’s first magnets on the whiteboard every week, Langford and Zerk-Thatcher epitomise patience, consistency and finding your place in a football team. In a year of some ups and quickly escalating downs, it’s been exciting to see players many fans didn’t expect to make the grade, get there.

And finally, begin to excel.

Kyle Langford now sits comfortably as the Bombers leading goal scorer for 2023, and inside the Top 10 in the Coleman Medal race with 45 goals to his name. Who on earth saw this coming? From struggling to make his mark in the team during his earliest times at the club and moving across a number of positions, it’s been electric to see Langford not only settle into a role up forward, but become the Dons key avenue to goal.

Prior to 2023, his best return in front of goal came in 2019 where he slotted 15 goals from 18 games. He kicked 13 goals from 17 games in 2021, and even in an injury plagued 2022, Langford nabbed 10 from 9 games played. And then this year, well, we all know how he’s gone this year.

45 goals with three games still to be played.

For a guy many feared was too slack, too slow and too passive to become a regular player in the Bombers senior side, his evolution has been unreal.

Brandon Zerk-Thatcher continues to prove himself as a quality AFL defender.

And then there’s Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, who has turned a positive 2022 into a consistently impressive 2023. In the season so far, BZT has averaged 6.5 intercept possessions and 6.4 spoils per game - up on his career numbers of 4.8 and 5 respectively. He’s also notched up the greatest number of games he’s played, too. A huge feat for a kid many didn’t see as a long-term backman as he racked up one game in 2019, ten in 2020, six in 2021 and 12 in his breakthrough season in 2022.

But much like Langford, many feared BZT just didn’t have the mongrel in him to compete with the best forwards in the game. But as time has proven, he’s not only got some of that mongrel within him, but BZT is also a competent user of the ball with decision-making skills that seem to be developing stronger as the games pass.

Both players were at the centre of the Dons win over the Eagles last Saturday afternoon – and were two of the too few players who deserve any mention from such an underwhelming outing. It’s a strange kind of day when you can walk out of a win feeling like you’ve lost.

Langford and Zerk-Thatcher have become the sort of players every fan hopes to have at either end of the field. They’re reliable, consistent and will give you everything they’ve got in the contest. So, it almost seemed fitting that the final two plays that secured Essendon’s one-point victory over West Coast involved both of these men. Langford kicking the match-winning goal from some handy work courtesy of Jye Menzie, and Zerk-Thatcher taking the match-winning mark down back.

A remarkable scenario considering how both began their careers and how close it seemed, at least in the minds of fans, that both came to not making it at AFL level at all. I suppose that’s part of why their current successes feel so impressive. Now, having said that I’d certainly hate to call either of the two underdogs, least of all Langford. After all, Essendon picked up Kyle Langford with pick 17 in the 2014 draft. BZT was selected with the more modest pick 66 in 2017. But neither of these two have ever felt like underdogs, more like ugly ducklings waiting to grow into Swans.

And it feels like in 2023, we’re starting to see the best versions of both.

The only thing left to wonder now, is who will be the next ugly duckling to grow into an unlikely star at Tullamarine?

Only time and patience will tell.

But if Langford and Zerk-Thatcher are anything to go by, it will be worth the wait.

Go Planes.