AFL 2023: Essendon coach Brad Scott has outlined his vision for a new era at the Bombers
Mark Thompson talked about it. John Worsfold tried to fix it. Ben Rutten was unable to change it. Here‘s how Brad Scott is trying to change one of the worst defences this decade.
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Brad Scott recognises the giant slice of irony.
As head of football at the AFL, a good chunk of his time over the past two years was spent trying to help open up the game and increase scoring.
To create fast, attractive football like the 2021 Grand Final with initiatives like the stand rule.
But things have come full circle, in a sense, since Essendon went out and poached Scott to help lift a football club which hasn’t won a final in 18 years.
It is a club which has been reactionary and jumpy through some tough times, and the fluctuations have never been more pronounced than in the last few years when in 2021 Jake Stringer turned on a blinding two months to secure a finals spot, only for the club to crash straight back down to earth in 2022.
In between, premiership coach Michael Malthouse tipped them for the flag.
Talk about a rollercoaster for fans who have already endured plenty.
But as Scott this week leaned back into the leather couch in his coach’s office overlooking Tullamarine, there was a firm commitment to build something much more reliable, and sturdy in red and black.
And it begun with reworking a defensive system at a club which has one of the worst defensive records over the past decade.
Mark Thompson talked about it. John Worsfold tried to fix it. Ben Rutten was unable to change it.
Now Scott has rolled his sleeves up in a bid to teach Essendon to become a great defensive team, in-line with the bulk of the premiers over the past 20 years.
“The irony is not lost on me because I have spent a lot of time at the AFL trying to create open free-flowing footy and make the game more compelling for fans,” Scott said.
“Some of the rule changes which have continued to evolve have made 2022 one of the most compelling seasons ever, but also because teams have really thought about ‘how do we get better offensively’.
“Our fans want to see us score, too, and we won’t take that offensive flair out of our game.
“But it is really an interesting environment in which we are trying to improve our defence.
“Pleasingly, the players have really bought into what we want to do, but the unfortunate reality is it is not something you click your fingers and get right straight away because it has been a trend (at Essendon) over a long period of time.
“It is multiple coaches, multiple eras and multiple different players, and there are habits.
“Some of the things we are trying implement involve undoing some ingrained habits.”
That is not to blame anyone. Scott was at pains to say his focus is on the future rather than the past, and he knows as well as anyone the AFL industry is as brutal as it gets for senior coaches.
The club handled the Rutten departure poorly, and the first appointment in its CEO search was a circus.
The Bombers apologised to Andrew Thorburn for ditching him a day into his CEO tenure for his role at a church.
But when Michael Hurley retired, he said what Essendon needed more than anything was stability.
He had six different senior coaches in his 12-year career.
That is why Scott said the obsession with the quick-fix is over at Essendon. He talks about foundations, systems and standards.
It’s consistency and trajectory over short-term solutions.
There will be blips, of course, in particular over the first year or two of the journey. Essendon is one of the youngest teams in the league.
But Scott will be unflinching. Not emotional.
It is why almost every day Scott shows the players what good defence looks like. And what happens when the opposite occurs.
Importantly, Essendon players have complete clarity and understanding on how they want to play.
“We have overlaid that (defensive vision) through almost every training session,” Scott said.
“The real challenge for any team is to do that over 125 minutes (in a game) and then throughout the entire season.
“And dealing with the inevitable fluctuations that can get frustrating for everyone, but I think what we want Essendon fans to see is that we are not perfect every time, but you can see what we are trying to do.
“Part of that is overlaying new habits, but unfortunately the undoing process makes it really messy, at times.
“While I think of all of our supporters understand what we are doing, that is really hard when you are not winning each week.
“So, there is a bit of understanding around the short-term pain (required) to build the habits we want to build over a long period of time.”
At the back end, Jayden Laverde has emerged as a leader, Jake Kelly wants to get back to his best, and Jordan Ridley is a Chrichton Medalist.
Andrew McGrath is a No. 1 pick and Massimo D’Ambrosio has been likened to Adam Saad. There’s talent there in the back half.
And over the past few months, Scott says he has notices a “big shift” in the defensive application.
New captain Zach Merrett says he wants to be the best defensive player at the club, helping set that tone.
And in attack, where all the good teams start their defence, the Bombers have added livewire Alwyn Davey, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti has come out of retirement, Jye Menzie has had an excellent pre-season, and Tex Wanganeen is an exciting talent in the pipelines despite a foot issue, giving Scott some options.
“Last year a lot of that (pressure forward) responsibility fell to Matt Guelfi, and he finished third in the best and fairest, primarily because he played that role so well,” he said.
“But there is a big burden for him to carry, so we are trying to share that load more.
“It was an area we identified immediately, and when I was appointed we only really had Matt Guelfi in that role, and you think ‘Wow this going to take us ages (to build)’.
“But then in a draft, you bring in Davey, Menzie comes through and we get ‘Walla’ back so there opportunity is there for us to really improve in that part of the ground.”
Dylan Shiel will also rotate forward after one of the best pre-seasons in his career, while Nic Martin could spend some time in the centre square after an impressive match simulation trial over summer.
What is clear is that everyone at Essendon is in the same boat after one of the biggest football club overhauls of the past 20 years.
New coaches, new chief executive, new football director, new president, new high performance manager and a new development boss. A new era.
As part of the club review, the Bombers wanted a heightened focus on development after a string of high draft picks over the past two years, and more unity in the football department.
“David Barham has repeatedly said this is a reset of the entire football club,” Scott said.
Scott knows what icebergs the Bombers need to dodge because he saw them at North Melbourne after taking on the coaching duties aged 33.
For 10 years, he led a club which punched well above its weight considering the lack of high draft picks at the Kangaroos (as two new teams entered the league) for a 106 -105 win-loss record.
They played finals in four campaigns, and in his last game the Roos came from behind in the last quarter to pip Western Bulldogs.
But at Essendon, some of the high-end talents have already been drafted, including top-10 picks Nik Cox, Archie Perkins and Zach Reid, plus Ben Hobbs, Sam Draper, Martin, Davey and No. 5 pick Elijah Tsatas.
Parish can be an elite midfielder and under Scott he has bought in as much as anyone at Essendon over summer.
To develop the young talent, Scott knows he must connect.
And if there is one thing everyone at Essendon says about his first few months at Bomberland, it is how clear Scott’s message is.
Scott thanks his greatest coaching mentor, AFL legend Leigh Matthews, for shaping his philosophy.
Cricket great David Hussey recently sat in on an Essendon meeting and was surprised how concise it was. And Scott said “that was one of our longer” meetings.
“We can over-complicate this game sometimes,” he said.
“We have data scientists, we have got PHD’s everywhere. In our meetings we could go through terabytes of vision to show players.
“But of all the great things I learned from Leigh, the number one things was his ability to take really complex information and boil it down to something more simple.
“Ultimately it is not what you tell the players, it is what they retain and what they can execute.
“So that meeting with David Hussey might have taken hours or weeks to prepare, so the work still goes in, but if there was one thing I would want the players to say … it is clarity.
“We want to bring things down to a really simple clear message.”
Scott: We’re a million miles away from relying on Jake
New Essendon coach Brad Scott says the Bombers had to stop relying on individual brilliance from players such as star forward Jake Stringer to win games.
Scott said a tendency to search for a quick-fix had cost the club in the past, but was adamant Essendon’s new administration led by president David Barham and chief executive Craig Vozzo would help take the club in a different direction.
Stringer, 28, remains sidelined with a back-related hamstring injury which has ruled him out of the club’s season-opener against Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday night.
While he remains one of the game’s most damaging players at his best, Scott said the goal kicker would not be rushed back as the Bombers seek to establish a consistent game plan powered by an even spread of contributors.
Scott said the Bombers’ reliance on individuals had “hurt them” and often put an unfair spotlight on Stringer, and others, to lift the team to victory on their own.
“We have got a million miles away from relying on Jake to play really well to win and if he doesn’t we lose,” Scott said.
“That is not what we are building our foundation on. If there is one message I want to get across to Essendon people the thing we need more than anything is stability.
“We have been up and down looking for a quick fix. It is in recruiting, and the trade period like ‘let’s bring in Jake Stringer to solve all of our problems, and it is totally unfair on Jake.
“What I want Jake to do is buy-in to the system we are building and play his part in it, no more, no less.
“If we are a team which relies on Jake to kick five (goals) and dominate to win, it is not sustainable – that style of footy.”
Stringer turned on a blinder to bury Grand Finalists Sydney Swans at the MCG in Round 12 last year, but the Bombers sacked Ben Rutten after losing four of the last five games.
He said Essendon wanted to build “a stable base” and limit any knee-jerk decision-making as part of the Bombers’ new era.
“The thing that was striking (about Essendon) was you need a couple of players to play well to win,” he said.
“Of course, all teams rely on their best players, but we need to be more systematic in our approach.
“That is why Jake will play when Jake is ready to play. Not before, and it won’t be a case of ‘We are under pressure, we need him’.
“Zach Reid (back) is training, Nik Cox (ankle) is training, Matt Guelfi (hamstring) is training and Stringer (hamstring) is training, but they won’t play until their ready.
“And arguably some of them won’t play for weeks after they are ready.
“We won’t sacrifice the prospect of long-term success for short-term fixes, and that can be really hard in an AFL environment.”
Essendon legend Tim Watson said there wasn’t much to get excited about after the second pre-season loss to St Kilda, leading into an opening round assignment against the Hawks at the MCG.
It is part of a softer draw in the opening month with clashes against non-finalists Gold Coast (Marvel) St Kilda, (MCG) and GWS Giants (Marvel).
In an interview with the Herald Sun, Scott said new captain Zach Merrett had been brilliant helping Essendon lift its pressure intensity as part of a defensive redesign.
“He (Merrett) has all the attributes to be elite in that area, and with our focus on defence he has led the way,” he said.
“He recognises and identifies we have got to improve in that space and he has been fantastic and Darcy Parish and Dylan Shiel have really bought in.
“The challenge is striking the right balance between contest, offence and defence, but we have just been too heavily skewed on whether we win it (the ball) or they win it.”
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