Don The Stat Countdown to 2026 - 54 Days to Round 1

We are officially 54 days out from Essendon’s Round 1 clash with Hawthorn, under lights at the MCG on March 13 and between now and then, we’re doing something a little bit different.



Leading into the 2025 Season, we counted down our Top 100 Essendon players since 1980.



In 2026, we’re kicking off a daily countdown to Round 1 2026 but instead of just ticking off days on a calendar, we’re counting them down through Essendon’s guernsey numbers.





Who wore it first.

Who wore it most.

Which Premiership players pulled it on.

Brownlow winners, club legends, cult heroes, and sometimes the obscure one-gamer that still forms part of the story.



 



By the time we get to Number 1, we’ll be on the eve of Round 1 — and we’ll have walked through more than a century of Essendon history, one jumper at a time.



Jumper Number 54 — a number that links two very different eras of the club, separated by more than 40 years.



 



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