Teenage ruckman Vigo Visentini to be Essendon's 11th debutant for 2025
The deluge of debutants at injury-hit Essendon is set to continue with ruckman Vigo Visentini called up for Thursday night's clash with Fremantle in Perth.
A five-day break between games forced coach Brad Scott to find help for veteran Todd Goldstein, who has been filling the breach after season-ending injuries to Sam Draper and Nick Bryan.
In last Saturday's smashing by Geelong, Lachie Blakiston and Archer May became the 9th and 10th Essendon players to make their AFL debuts this season, and now 203cm, 19-year-old Vistentini will get his chance.
Visentini will be the 11th first-gamer for the Bombers in 2025, joining Isaac Kako, Tom Edwards, Saad El-Hawli, Archer Day-Wicks, Lewis Hayes, Angus Clarke, Zak Johnson, Luamon Lual, Blakiston and May.
The teenage big man is the younger brother of Port Adelaide ruckman Dante Visentini.
The moment 🥰
VIIIIGGGOOOOO. pic.twitter.com/LnnyAkOCv5
— Essendon FC (@essendonfc) June 16, 2025
Essendon has 13 players on its injury list and is also without midfield bull Sam Durham for one more week after copping a suspension.
The Bombers are still in 12th spot despite Saturday night's 95-point shellacking from the Cats, after which Scott spoke about the challenge of trying to compete with such a young, inexperienced group.
'We're trying to educate the chess pieces where to go, and that's what we've got to get excited about as a coaching group,' he said.
'We stepped back tonight, without doubt, but the previous two weeks has shown that there's enough fight and there's enough capability within this group, and we'll never concede.
'We'll keep coaching, keep working with them. I've seen enough intestinal fortitude to suggest that there's reasons to be optimistic about the future, albeit it doesn't feel like that right now.
'The positive of that is we've exposed players to AFL footy that wouldn't have played otherwise, and there are some of those young boys that I don't think would go out of our team for a long time.'
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