Essendon Vice-Captain Dyson Heppell has heaped praise on Bombers fans for sticking with them through tough times in 2016.

The Bombers will head into 2017 with record membership figures, having just cracked the 45,000 figure quicker than ever before.

Heppell thanked Bombers fans for their resilience at Essendon’s final training session for the year at Tullamarine.

“I have no doubt that the Essendon fans are the best in the business, they are absolutely outstanding. Obviously we’ve been through some rough times over the last few years and it’s been easier to get through it with the fans by our side.”

Heppell believes he and his teammates will be tougher for the experience.

“You do learn from these kind of experiences. I certainly feel I’ve really developed as a person and also as a footballer throughout this period.”

“I’ve had a chance to get my body and my mind right, the psychology of footy is massive these days- you really need to be in the right frame of mind.”

Bombers coach John Worsfold says gun Number 1 pick Andrew McGrath is coping well with the rigours of full-time footy.

“He’s going great. He’s on a modified program in terms of overall work loads, just getting used to footy everyday as opposed to going to school and things like that is a big change. It challenges the younger guys in that first month but they’re all going really well, we’re impressed with the whole crew.”

Woosha has also warned the younger players not to indulge too much in the Christmas celebrations.

“From the day they start back there’s only five weeks until we play Collingwood. We will really be ramping up our training load on the 9th of January so they need to be ready to go again, we can’t spend two weeks working off that Christmas pudding.”

When quizzed about Jobe Watson, the Dons coach said that the skipper was ready for a big 2017.

“You can see that as the season gets closer and as time goes on Jobe knows what he is here for. His leadership and passion has been there for all to see.”

by Michael T. Lynch – contributor