‘They’ll stand out in a bad way’: The mindset driving Brad Scott’s Essendon overhaul

IN making the case that his revamped version of Essendon is on a more stable and professional path, Brad Scott points to the decisions made by six current Essendon players.

Four recruits – free agents Ben McKay, Jade Gresham, Todd Goldstein and 23-year-old (Port Adelaide) wingman Xavier Duursma – had offers or interest from elsewhere but chose to ply their trade in red and black.

McKay had hefty offers from Hawthorn and Sydney. Scott says the Bombers did not offer the highest bid for the key defender, although they paid enough over six years to fetch North the stunning return of pick No.3 in draft compensation, a yield that rankled rivals.

The same choice applied, Scott said, to the Bombers’ own 2023 free agents Mason Redman and Darcy Parish, who waited and surveyed the landscape – Essendon and other possibilities (Adelaide for Redman) – before signing long-term deals.

“They all had a long hard look and decided that Essendon was the club they wanted to be at,” Scott told this masthead. “They obviously think we’re going to go OK, both now and in the future.”

But if the recruitment and retention of those six players was his measure of a better Essendon, Scott tempered that observation with a caution about what the recruits would bring.

The four acquisitions did not represent a panacea for a club that finished 11th with a percentage under 90 and finished 2023 with a whimper after a strong first half. They alone wouldn’t see the Bombers fly up.

“We haven’t brought the players in that we have with an expectation that they’re the answer,” said the coach. “You know, they’re [not] the final piece of the puzzle by any stretch of the imagination.”

Why were they brought in for then? Scott’s said the quartet all redressed a positional need, without costing the Dons any draft picks, given three were free agents and Duursma a swap for Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, who’d requested a trade back home to South Australia.

Former North Melbourne defender Ben McKay joined the Bombers on a long-term deal.Credit: AFL Photos

“The strategy, in its simplest form, is we can acquire players that are significant needs for us, they improve our list without having to give up any draft capital. So we haven’t brought players at the expense of our future.”

In a candid interview outlining the new Essendon he is seeking to create, Scott explained how the professional standards – a problem 12 months ago – were vastly improved, detailed major changes to the team and football staff, the challenge facing players who didn’t shape up, and what the senior coach expected from the Bombers in 2024 in his second year at the helm.

What the recruits bring

The rationale for paying the necessary price for McKay, whom Scott coached in the defender’s formative years at North, was obvious to anyone who watched the Bombers play Geelong at the MCG last year.

“We’re playing Geelong at the MCG and Tom Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron are throwing around our young defenders ... And we’re forced to play players in roles they’re potentially not ready for.” At this point, Zach Reid, in whom Scott has invested much hope, has played only eight senior games as a tall back over three injury-prone years.

Scott says McKay has been playing in a defence that had been “under siege for a long period of time,” adding “I’ve got really high hopes for the sort of footy that Ben can play in our system.”

McKay’s six-year deal has been the subject of much discussion given he’s not been an elite player at North. But Scott says a) the Bombers were in a competitive market (and did not offer the most), and b) McKay has a higher value for them than others.

Gresham, 26, will be deployed in a similar role to his St Kilda one, as a forward who takes turns in the middle.

“We’ve recruited them to play specific roles for us ... in Jade, Xavier’s, Ben’s positions, we need those positions.”

Duursma was obtained in the swap for Zerk-Thatcher (the Bombers gaining slightly on pick swaps).

He would play wing, in the first instance, allowing the Bombers to try the impressive Nic Martin across half-back.

The trialling of Martin, hitherto a wingman, across half-back, was part of a versatility push.

“What we’ve done is we’ve trained players in multiple positions so we’ve got more flexibility.”

Goldstein’s recruitment was straightforward: Scott wanted mature ruck support for Sam Draper following the retirement of Andrew Phillips and thus enlisted his North old boy.

Scott had revealed to this journalist less than 12 months ago how Irishman (now Lion) Conor McKenna had told him the Bombers were the last club he would play for when Scott sought to get him back.

“I would like to think a player like Conor, who had been here and certainly had that view 12 months ago ... he would walk and say, ‘This is where I want to be’.”

A new Essendon?

McKenna’s unflattering assessment of Essendon was a precursor to the new coach’s push for higher standards and “an elite AFL lifestyle”, having said that there were too many players just happy to be on an AFL list. A cultural shift was needed.

If Scott took a blunt view of the club’s failings – tempered with sympathy for what players like Dyson Heppell and Zach Merrett had endured – he felt a vast improvement had been made in professional standards.

“I really felt last year was the time to say enough’s enough, this is what an elite AFL lifestyle looks like and if you can’t live that lifestyle, you’re not going to be here for very long.”

This off-season, 15 players heeded Scott’s message by travelling to Arizona, at their own expense, to complete a two-week self-initiated training camp.

“I think we made massive inroads,” said Scott. “You point to the tangible, guys, a group of players, out of their own pocket, in a break, deciding we are going to go and do something about investing in our careers, I think is a really good step.”

Scott said that there were another 10 younger/injured players whom the Dons dissuaded from attending the camp, which “tells us we’ve got buy in from a very large majority of the group”.

Essendon’s players have bought in on raising professional standards, with 15 heading to the US for a training camp over the summer.Credit: Getty Images

Scott also made plain the fate of those didn’t accept these standards.

“If we have players who aren’t going to buy into that part of our program, in terms of the investment in the elite AFL lifestyle, they’ll stand out, and they’ll stand out in a bad way, so it will be quite easy to make the changes to our list that we need to make.

Scott’s football department has seen what he called “significant change” after he and chief executive Craig Vozzo spent 2023 examining team and staff.

Experienced strategist (Hawthorn, St Kilda, the Wallabies) David Rath came at Scott’s behest, to lift training and strategy, new list boss Matt Rosa was hired to take over from (surviving) veteran Adrian Dodoro, Dan McPherson became footy general manager mid-2023 when Josh Mahoney – who’d clashed with Dodoro – went to the AFL. Blake Caracella moved from line coach to VFL coach. Psychologist Ben Robbins joined from St Kilda.

“The Josh and Adrian thing is way overblown,” said Scott. “But when I was appointed GM of footy at the AFL, Josh Mahoney was someone they were pursuing ... Josh in the end made a decision that’s a path he wanted to go down.

“Matt Rosa’s come in in his role ... I think as a club we’re as stable as we’ve been in recent memory.”

Tensions: Former Essendon football chief Josh Mahoney and long-time Bombers recruiter Adrian Dodoro.Credit: Getty Images

Expectations

Season 2024 marks the 20th year without a winning final for the powerful Bombers, whose tormented adult fans are operating on different time frames to Scott, who has preached patience.

Scott, however, will not be drawn into specific forecasts about winning or making finals, saying he is focused on improving in all areas, rather than an immediate outcome.

Scott said the focus on making or winning finals this year were “understandable questions” but not the primary focus of the Dons themselves.

“To the players, coaches, we’re focused on working really hard to improve all parts of our game to give us the best chance of that ... I’m just not in the prediction game, it’s a waste of my time.

“If you look at the players that we’ve got on our list, we can expect to improve all of them, and they have improved over the pre-season. What I can’t tell is how much the rest of the competition are improved ... I can’t judge us against everyone else.”

And how can we judge which was the real Essendon – the version that beat Melbourne and led the premiers until late on Anzac Day, or the team that lost rounds 23 and 24 by a total of nearly 200 points?

Essendon fell from fifth to missing finals in the space of seven weeks in 2023, and suffered heavy losses to end the year.Credit: Getty Images

“I think a combination of both ... every team’s best is pretty good, if they can produce it,” said Scott, noting Essendon’s demographics as a younger team and one that he acknowledged did not yet have elite “A-plus” performers outside Merrett.

“What the top-of-the-ladder teams do and the top-eight teams do is they produce their best more consistently. And they can cover ... if they have some adversity.

“We couldn’t cover it last year, for a whole host of reasons ... we’ve got to improve.

“And I think while it was extremely painful at times to perform so poorly at the end of the year, you know it leaves everyone with no doubt as to the gap we have to bridge to get to the best.

“I think there’s reason for our supporters to be excited about what we’re building, but I think it’s unhelpful to be making grandiose statements about what we’re going to do.”

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