Essendon fans flocked to Ballarat’s Mars Stadium to rally around the team for the last practice match against St Kilda on Saturday.

Key forward Peter Wright is eager to get into the 2026 season after missing much of the games in the beginning of last year. 

The 29-year-old put away two goals and 11 hitouts against the Saints, setting up some great opportunities for his teammates. 

“It’s good to have a hit-out, St Kilda are looking pretty strong at the moment,” Wright said.  

“I feel like large parts of the game looked how we wanted but we weren’t able to finish our work in the second half which is a bit disappointing, but we’re here to learn.”

There were many promising signs in a highly-contested first half, with the game slipping away in the second. 

“I think it’s just learning how hard the game is,” Wright said. 

“I don’t think we ran out of legs, I feel like we’re in a good spot from a physical point of view. I just think St Kilda obviously had a solid pre-season and are good to go, and we need to learn from how consistent they were.

“The first-half we matched them on a really good level, it’s just being able to do that for longer and having the ability to keep running up and competing the same way, physically and mentally for all four quarters.”

Reflecting on his leadership and guidance throughout the pre-season, Wright highlights the joy of working with the fleet of young players like Archer May and Nate Caddy.

“I love working with both those boys, they work really hard, so from a leadership point of view, I just try to teach them as much as I can,” Wright said. 

“I just really enjoy all the off-field stuff, trying to teach them how to go about it.

“I love seeing them develop, May came in on the last quarter and kicked a couple of goals, I get a real lift out of that from doing a lot of work together to improve parts of his game.

“I think sometimes with Caddy, the less you say, the better for him – trying to give him a little bit of framework and just let him play from there.

“I don’t feel like I have all the answers for them, but I just try to teach where I can.” 

Throughout pre-season and practice matches, Wright has worked in tandem with second-year ruckman Lachie Blakiston, who delivered an impressive performance against the Saints. Up against the experienced ruck duo of Tom De Koning and Rowan Marshall, Blakiston stood his ground, finishing with 16 disposals and 21 hitouts on Saturday afternoon.

“He’s (Blakiston) been really impressive, the last couple of weeks especially, it’s been a really good battle between him and Vig’s (Vigo Visentini) across the pre-season, and now he’s really gone to another level,” Wright said. 

“I think the (new) ruck rule is really going to help him, he’s definitely going to be one of the most athletic rucks in the comp.

“His ability to get first hand on the ball has been really impressive, so I’m looking forward to working with him throughout the other parts of the year and beyond.”

Completing the pre-season and having all practice matches ticked off, Wright is looking forward to applying pre-season learnings into the 2026 season.

“It’s really exciting, it’s been a tough preseason, which is a good thing I think, it’s probably pushed some of the limits of the group,” Wright said.  

“We feel like we’ve made some really great inroads with how we want the game to look for us and we definitely saw large parts of that today. 

“The backend of pre-season, you’re just itching to get back get back into real games so I’m looking forward to to freshen up and learn from today and take it up to the Hawks so it’s going to be exciting.”