Essendon’s latest recruit Mark Williams, 26, is desperate to play his part in order to put Essendon in the best position to contest for its next Premiership.

Venturing into new territory to address the media at Windy Hill today, Williams said he had a lot to look forward to by becoming a Bomber.

“Like Hawthorn, Essendon has a lot of exciting young talent and I want to do my bit for the team and play my role,” Williams said.

“Essendon is one of the powerhouse clubs in Melbourne and I am looking forward to playing in some of the big games throughout the year.

“They also have a good Indigenous base down here and hopefully I can use my leadership qualities to come down and help develop those younger guys.”

“Mark is a young man that we targeted and wanted to recruit to Essendon this week,” Knights said.

“It is great for our football club to be able to recruit someone of Mark’s experience – particularly in big games – and obviously achieving the ultimate last year.

“I have watched Mark from afar and have liked the way he played his football.

“In addition to his ability, Mark made it very clear that he really badly wanted to come to the Essendon Football Club and be a part of this young group moving forward. That impressed me more than anything.”

Knights said Williams’ experience in the forward half is expected to fast-track the development of the club’s emerging forwards Jay Neagle and Scott Gumbleton.

“Mark’s role will be all encompassing in the forward half - we expect him to play a number of roles in the forward line to compliment our younger and bigger forward line players,” Knights said.

“Mark is a natural goal-kicker but we also like his creativity and his ability to set up other people. I know he gets a lot of joy out of assisting other players and making other players look better.

“What attracted to Mark was his leadership and experience and also his creativity and his x-factor. We are really excited to have him here.”

While the club has until 2pm today to finalise any more trades, Knights said he is happy with what the club has achieved this week.

“We feel like we have achieved what we wanted to achieve out of the week thus far,” he said.

“We have secured Mark and four picks under draft selection 33.

Essendon trades: Pick No.16 - the selection it received fron St Kilda for Andrew Lovett - to Port Adelaide, Pick No. 42 (Geelong) and Jay Nash (Port Adelaide).