Essendon have started a probe into the club’s alarming injury crisis that has effectively destroyed their 2025 season.

The crisis, in particular, has decimated the club’s stock of talls, but soft-tissue injuries are prevalent across the entire group.

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Ruck pair Sam Draper (Achilles) and Nick Bryan (ACL) are out for the season, and Tom Edwards and Lewis Hayes are also done for the year.

Star defenders Jordan Ridley (hamstring), Mason Redman (calf) and Ben McKay (foot) are also sidelined as are Kyle Langford (quad). Nik Cox (concussion), Harrison Jones (ankle), Saad El-Hawli (hamstring) and Zach Reid (hamstring).

Channel 7’s The Agenda Setters host Craig Hutchison called it “the Essendon injury saga”.

“They are so crippled at the moment, a lot of soft tissues, a lot of them hamstrings and calves and other areas.”

Veteran AFL journalist Caroline Wilson said Essendon chief Craig Vozzo wanted to get to the bottom of it.

“Some of (the injuries) are re-injured soft-tissue injuries,” Wilson said on The Agenda Setters.

“My understanding is that Craig Vozzo — who of course is the CEO of the club but very much a footy CEO — is leading a deep dive and a real investigation into what is going on with their injuries.

“And I guess that includes the high-performance boss (Sean Murphy) who has been there since 2019.”

Hutchison said: “They will be demanding answers, wouldn’t they?”

Wilson: “(The probe) includes all of the high-performance staff.”

Wilson said they had asked coach Brad Scott on The Agenda Setters if the surface at the club’s training base at Tullamarine had anything to do with the crisis.

“He bristled at that and said that was a ridiculous suggestion,” Wilson said.

“Fair enough ... but it’ll be interesting to see where that (investigation) ends up.”

While on the Bombers, Hutchison suggested there was a “new curse” in the AFL, and it was called “Kane’s Curse”.

“Five weeks ago, he went hard and he went early on the Bombers as his next project,” Hutchison said before playing a clip Cornes who was raving about Essendon.

In the clip, Cornes compared Essendon to Hawthorn and said the club was stable and they could spike hard in a year or two under a “very good” coach and a “very, very good” captain.

Hutchison said since Cornes went public with his Essendon call, they were 16th for ‘points for’, 17th in ‘points from turnover’, and 18th in ‘points against’.

Hutchison also added they had one won and four losses in their past five games.

“So it’s off to a rocky start,” he said.

Cornes, however, also pointed out that they were decimated by injury and they nearly beat reigning premier Brisbane at the Gabba.

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Hutchison: “Still all in?”

“Absolutely I’m still all in,” Cornes said.

“They’re almost the most impressive team this year with their performance, where they’re sitting with the injuries and the challenges that they’ve had.”