But it is the elevation of Johns that is the big story. The Bombers took a punt when they put Johns onto the rookie list at the start of the 2003 season. It wasn’t until midway through the season that medical and fitness staff were convinced he was ready to go. Johns played seven games with the Bendigo Bombers and in five of those he only spent a half on the ground. But he has shown the match committee enough in those games and on the training track for him to be elevated to Essendon’s senior list.
""My aim at the start of the year was to try and get right. I didn't know what was happening with my hip and then towards the end of the year, when I got the injury right, I obviously just wanted to get put up,"" Johns said this afternoon. ""At the moment I am doing a little bit of light training on the break and I am looking forward to getting back into pre-season training.""
""My first aim now is to crack a game and then build on it from there,"" Johns said. ""Even though I only played seven games in the VFL this year I have definitely taken confidence out of those matches. Five of those games were actually half matches, but they still lifted me a fair bit, which is good.""
Essendon recruiting manager Adrian Dodoro said nobody was getting carried away by Johns’ elevation, least off all the man himself. “Courtney knows that he has simply taken another step towards fulfilling a dream – nothing more, nothing less,” Dodoro said. “He still has to get through this pre-season and he still has to play senior football.”
“It is reward for his hard work and he knows that it means he will have to work even harder from this point on.”
Essendon’s initial senior list lodgement with the AFL will be:
Mark Johnson
Mark Mercuri
Aaron Henneman
Jobe Watson
James Hird
Sean Wellman
Dean Solomon
Jason Winderlich
Adam Ramanauskas
Mark McVeigh
Damien Peverill
Andrew Welsh
Damian Cupido
Jason Johnson
Darren Walsh
Matthew Lloyd
David Hille
Ted Richards
Tristan Cartledge
Mark Bolton
Joe Misiti
Scott Lucas
Jason Laycock
Joel Reynolds
Sam Hunt
Dustin Fletcher
Adam McPhee
Marc Bullen
Ben Haynes
Courtney Johns
Simon O’Keefe
Dean Rioli
Matthew Allan
Justin Murphy
Mark Alvey
De-listed: Shane Harvey, Rob Forster-Knight, James Davies, Jordan Bannister.
Traded: Cory McGrath, Danny Jacobs.
Retired: Steven Alessio, Paul Barnard.
Rookie deslistings: Ken Hall, Scott Howard, Toby McGrath, Adrian Wilson.
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