It was the dead of winter and the Bombers were in trouble.

With four wins from their first 12 games in 1997, finals were out of the question.

Reigning Brownlow medal winner James Hird, Michael Long and Darren Bewick were all sidelined for large parts of the season and other experienced players were struck down by niggling injuries.

But this injury crisis allowed the building blocks of one of the greatest ever teams to be established.

With injuries to key players, Coach Kevin Sheedy turned to some unproven youth.

“There’s only one way to do it – don’t just go one by one, just put a group in,” the four time premiership Coach said.

And so he did.

19 year olds Scott Lucas and Matthew Lloyd became the key forward combination.

Fellow teenagers Jason Johnson and Chris Heffernan made their debuts and 22-year-old Sean Wellman began to hold down centre-half-back.

Justin Blumfield, Blake Caracella and Gary Moorcroft also gained valuable experience.

“We were wide eyed in 97’, we were just happy to be out there on the MCG,” Lloyd said.

“By 98’, we expected much more of each other.

“We expected to win games because suddenly when you’ve got 20 games under your belt you go from worrying about yourself to worrying whether the team wins or loses.”

The Bombers reached the finals in 1998, but bowed out in the first week to North Melbourne.

A year later, the side made the preliminary final and had become one of the best teams in the competition.

By 2000, those eight unproven players would form the backbone of the all-conquering premiership side that lost just one game all season.

Today, Essendon is faced with the same problem Sheedy had to overcome all those years ago.

Jobe Watson headlines a lengthy injury list.

And just like his former mentor, James Hird is turning to youth.

Sheedy can see the move paying off down the track.

“It really pays dividends,” he said.

“The more you blood now, by the middle of next year you’ve got something exciting.

“Most Essendon fans want to see that. I think Hirdy has done the right thing.”

The names Joe Daniher, Zach Merrett, Nick O’Brien, Martin Gleeson, Jackson Merrett, Jason Ashby, Shaun Edwards, Jayden Laverde and Kyle Langford might not strike fear in opposition clubs yet.

But in 97’, no one knew much about Caracella, Blumfield, Lloyd, Heffernan, Moorcroft, Johnson, Wellman and Lucas either.

And we all know how that story ended up.