The 23-year-old has his own type of football zen when it comes to translating his on-field performance, which has seen him rise to be one of Essendon’s top midfielders, into words. 

“I just go out there and experience every contest as it is and see how I go,” the Bombers’ vice-captain said.

“I’m obviously not going to win every one, but I don’t believe there’s some form thing over my head that’s going to mean I play well or poorly before a game.

“That’s why I enjoy training so much and playing so much, it’s just being really in the moment and just enjoying it with my teammates – that’s the foremost thing that I enjoy.”

Merrett, who averaged 26.8 disposals a game this season, said he relished having the opposition send players, such as Carlton’s Ed Curnow, to attempt to heavily tag him out of games.

“It’s just an exciting challenge, I love going out there and playing on the best player,” he said.

“The fact that opposition teams will do their plans during the week to try and stop me individually is exciting.

“If that means I can help my teammates more to win, that’s all it’s about.”

Merrett, who is entering into his sixth AFL pre-season with the Bombers, recently returned from an overseas “study” trip to London with teammate and key forward Joe Daniher.

“I was just overseas with him doing a little bit of study and a bit of training with him over there,” he said. “(We were) just trying to improve and upskill our work around performance and, in particular, the culture of our club moving forward. That was a really exciting time with Joe.

“There were a few other AFL head coaches and performance guys over there, but it was good to rub shoulders with some elite sport performance people from around the world.”