Dyson Heppell is coming towards the end of a long career at Essendon and has been in the news lately as the club has low-balled him on his next contract offer, leading some to conclude that they are gently tapping him on the shoulder to spend his twilight years at an expansion club. Apart from the drugs saga, Heppell's time at Bomberland has mostly been spent behind the ball, first as a nominal half back and then in midfield as a mop-up merchant cleaning up backwards of the centre. One wonders if the Dons would be a better team without Hep's handbrake.
Dyson Heppell is coming towards the end of a long career at Essendon and has been in the news lately as the club has low-balled him on his next contract offer, leading some to conclude that they are gently tapping him on the shoulder to spend his twilight years at an expansion club. Apart from the drugs saga, Heppell's time at Bomberland has mostly been spent behind the ball, first as a nominal half back and then in midfield as a mop-up merchant cleaning up backwards of the centre. One wonders if the Dons would be a better team without Hep's handbrake.
Dyson Heppell was in a lot of fantasy teams in preseason and started the season well, before a back injury derailed him for a bit. If you were one of those who traded him out at that point and didn't get back on when he returned only a few weeks later, you will be missing out now on what had always promised to be a lucrative new role starting at half back. Hep's game was always based on starting behind the ball as that's where he positioned himself in midfield, so it has been a natural reversion to the role he started in. He is still a legit stepping stone fantasy asset.
Dyson is a hoover
Up to the bye period last season, we got the same old dependable Dyson Heppell, with disposals somewhere in the high 20s mostly gathered behind packs without elite hurt factor. A foot bone problem interrupted his post-bye run three times, occasioning off-season surgery. We saw four and a half seasons of extremely flat production before that blip, so presuming that Heppell gets back to full fitness we can expect more of the same in year nine. This makes him an unexciting but solid early round fantasy draft option, with low upside and downside.
Dyson's spheroid
For the past four or five years, Dyson Heppell has settled into a groove of fantasy production that sits behind the elite of the competition. Perhaps it was because he started his career off half back, but most of his possessions seem to come at half speed starting behind the contest. He doesn't make the top 20 for any of the key stats for a midfielder, but is in the 20s for a lot of them. Heppell hasn't got a hole in his game as such, it's just that the whole is not as big as the very top echelon of the league. In this way he's the poor man's Scott Pendlebury, as his game is complete but lacking a certain volume. This makes him valuable to a certain kind of fantasy coach who is looking for a reliable starter without much upside, making him an early pick... just not too early.
Lots of juice in Heppell
Stepping into the Essendon captaincy after a year off didn't affect Dyson Heppell's game, as he delivered much the same set of numbers as in 2015. He is slightly more outside than Scott Pendlebury and accumulates a little more than Callan Ward, and belongs in that elite level. He was outclassed in two games against each of Adelaide and Sydney during the year. Heppell gets even more responsibility in 2018 given the retirements of Jobe Watson and Brent Stanton, and his shoulders are broad enough to bear the load. He will be a workhorse in that Bomber engine room as they shoot for top four in the next few years, perhaps not hitting the highest echelon but a dependable scorer from an early round pick as the tags will go to Zach Merrett.
