ESSENDON forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti has made an early impression at The Hangar this week after deciding to turn his back on retirement earlier this month.
The 29-year-old shocked the football world when he announced he was retiring in May, before changing his mind six months later after travelling around Australia with his dog.
McDonald-Tipungwuti reported back for pre-season training on Monday morning – a fortnight ahead of schedule – ready to get his body back into a position that made him one of the more exciting forwards in the game across his first 126 games.
The Tiwi Islands product completed a testing running set alongside Bombers captain Dyson Heppell, ruckman Andrew Phillips and young gun Nik Cox at the end of Friday's training session, while new Essendon coach Brad Scott watched on.
Essendon GM of Football Josh Mahoney said McDonald-Tipungwuti has rediscovered his love of the game and his appetite to make his mark at the highest level.
"It is a great story for him to return. He had to go through the process. At the time it was the right decision for him; he'd lost the love of the game and really had to go back and connect with country," Mahoney told AFL.com.au's Footy Feed on Friday.
"Sometimes you do have to let people go away to come back better versions of themselves. That's what he is. He's come back to training, he is in a great headspace, loving being here, he is in full training now and we're really excited to see what he can do."
McDonald-Tipungwuti hasn't played a senior game since the round 21 clash against the Western Bulldogs last year and only managed four VFL appearances in 2022, but Mahoney said the former rookie is committed to doing the work across the pre-season.
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"He is still working on his conditioning. The good thing is he is up for the work. That was probably one of the things in the back half before he made his decision that it was just getting too hard for him," Mahoney said.
"He knows he is a bit behind; he has missed 18 months pretty much of AFL footy, but we're going to work with him and he is going to build and build each week."
While McDonald-Tipungwuti is a familiar face back on track, new recruits Will Setterfield and Sam Weideman have both also started training earlier than required as they look to make the most of a fresh start.
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Heppell signed a one-year contract extension in September after turning his back on an enticing offer from Gold Coast.
Essendon will undergo a leadership process over the pre-season, but Mahoney said the club still views the 30-year-old as the right option to lead the club for a seventh season.
"He has been a great leader and a great contributor to our football club for a long time. At this stage, we still see him as our captain moving forward," he said.
"We need to have a lot more discussions about what our leadership structure looks like. The first things first, was to get our resources, our coaching plan in place and our football program off the back of that. that’s now in place."
Essendon’s entire list will return for pre-season training on December 5 for a block of training ahead of the Christmas break.
