By Jake Niall
When Essendon were courting Brad Scott, the ex-North Melbourne coach only took on the challenge because the club hierarchy recognised how far the Bombers had to travel to be back in premiership contention.
Scott bluntly told president David Barham and his board that if they believed they were close to a turnaround in on-field results, they shouldn’t hire him.
“If the club had said to me, ‘We think we can turn this around really quickly’ – and, you know, I said to them, ‘If that’s your view, I’m not the guy for you. You’re better off going and getting someone else who thinks that’s what they want to take over.’”
Brad Scott and David Barham.Credit: Getty Images
Scott told Barham and company that he wanted to build something special and lasting, in a pitch that has led the Bombers to eschew short-term objectives – despite the perennial political pressures facing an administration whose fan base has not experienced a winning final since 2004, the longest drought among all clubs.
“I’m interested in building a team and bringing some stability to the club, to build something special over time,” Scott said, recounting his conversation.
“Because unfortunately in a competition we’re in, you don’t just click your fingers. They can point to Collingwood all they like but 2021’s the outlier, not 2022.”
Scott said he couldn’t take on the job without assurances that the hierarchy shared his assessment of their position. “You’re starting with one arm tied behind your back, if there’s a dislocation between what they’re seeing and what they’re expecting.
“Things can change pretty quickly. I’d be equally concerned if we’re playing really well and everyone thinks, ‘We’ve fixed everything, we’re going to be OK.’ Regardless of results in 2023, it’s going to take us some time, because that’s our list profile, that’s strategically what we’ve done.”
‘The last club he’d play for’
The scale of the task confronting Scott was apparent when he vainly attempted to persuade Conor McKenna, the speedy Irish half-back, to return to the club after two years back in Ireland.
McKenna made plain to Scott that he had been underwhelmed by Essendon, as the club also strived to win back talismanic small forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti from a retirement due to personal circumstances.
“We worked really hard to get Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti back because the thought of ‘Walla’ making a comeback to AFL footy but not wanting to play for Essendon ... one of the first meetings I had with Conor McKenna, when I was appointed, and Conor wanting to come back from Ireland to play AFL footy at any other club other than Essendon. Basically ... we’ve got a problem here.”
Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.Credit: Getty Images
Scott said the McKenna conversations had been helpful in clarifying issues the club faced. “It became clear really early on, I mean we weren’t really in the conversation.
“I was able to have three or four meetings with Conor, both in person and on the phone in Ireland. And whilst in the end, he chose to go to Brisbane, at least we were back in the conversation.
“He was actively considering coming back to Essendon, which wasn’t where it started in October. So I was also able to learn a lot, some of his concerns ... the club was really keen to get Paddy Ryder back [as Indigenous player development officer]. Paddy’s a good person, he’ll do a great job.
“We want these players to want to come back to Essendon. To rebuild all of those things first, before we go forward.”
The entitlement problem
While noting Essendon’s historic stature as a great club, abundant in support and tradition, Scott said that the Bombers had to accept that not only were the quick fixes non-existent, but that they weren’t entitled to success.
“Essendon is, on just about any measure, it’s a great club. It’s a big club, it’s got a lot of history and it’s got a lot of tradition, a lot of success. But with the modern era is 18 genuinely good teams, in an 18-team competition, we’ve got to get away from this ‘we’re a big club, so we’re entitled to something.’
“We’re not entitled to anything and there are no quick fixes. We’ve tried that. We’ve brought in top-end players.”
Essendon, he added, had “oscillated between thinking we’re a contender to meddling in the middle”. If Scott did not say so, he knows the fans have endured pleas for patience for decades.
Youth first and looking at what you’ve got
This recognition that the Bombers aren’t close to contention led to a trading period last October when, instead of desperately seeking players such as Josh Dunkley, a past target, the Dons eschewed spending draft capital, opting not to trade in mature types.
Scott’s preference was to prioritise the highly talented but injured Zach Reid, Kaine Baldwin and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher in key defensive roles, instead of filling that hole with a plug-and-play key defender. The same logic was applied to the midfield, where he wanted to survey the existing talent, while also discovering Archie Perkins’ best role.
Zach Reid.Credit: Getty Images
“We want to see Kaine Baldwin play back, we want to see Zerk-Thatcher play back, we want to see Zach Reid once he returns from injury, play back. It’s going to take us a while to get a clearer picture of what we want.
“In the meantime, it’s not about put your finger in the dyke to fix one problem and create another.”
To the question of which player had surprised him over summer, Reid was the first name that Scott mentioned. A genuine key defender is Essendon’s most pressing need. Reid and Nik Cox, prized picks from 2020’s draft, are recovering from back injuries.
“When we get Zach Reid back in our side, we want him back for good. Cox fits into that category too. They won’t play in the early rounds because we’re not going to take a short-term view.”
How the culture needs to change
Scott takes the view that while the drug saga is a decade old, the effects have lingered. One has been that the club prioritised eradicating a massive ($12 million plus) debt and commercial recovery over on-field results, having faced an existential crisis.
Scott, thus, sought assurances from Barham and the board that he “would be given the authority and autonomy to work in football without undue distraction”.
The last word could refer to anything that’s happened at Essendon over many years, including 2022’s board upheaval, as the leadership changed over the issue of whether Ben Rutten should be retained.
“Yeah, there is clearly a cultural shift required and you know that takes, 1) a little bit of time to work out what’s required - I’ve come in with a really open mind.
“I think it’s really dangerous to form a view from the outside ... But I’ve formed somewhat of a view based on the facts ... it’s not difficult to do that based on things like the age and experience of your list and where you sit positionally.
“But the thing’s a bit harder is, ‘What’s the attitude of this group? How hard do they work.’ I see the hunger in the group.
“But, you know, you trace back the last decade and while I’m the last person who wants to dig up the past, there’s still some things that are unresolved, you know, almost 10 years ago.
“The club’s been through a traumatic period where, it seems to me, the focus – and Dave Barham talked to this publicly – the focus has been on looking to repair the balance sheet, you know commercially we need to get the club back on track. The footy, you know, sometimes it didn’t even come second.”
The consequence, in Scott’s view, had been players simply happy just to be on AFL lists.
“And the players were, you know, potentially just content to exist in the competition, rather than getting back and competing and giving ourselves a chance to take it up to the best. That renewed focus on footy also comes with a responsibility for our playing group to uphold what an elite AFL lifestyle looks like.”
The imperative of seeking to retain players, demonstrated during the Saad/Daniher/Orazio Fantasia exodus, arguably compromised standards.
“The backdrop is, and the context is, you were in an environment is where players were walking out the door, like en masse.”
Scott said he understood the context from the saga of “trying to keep everyone happy, keep everyone on board, whilst trying to push an elite AFL lifestyle.
“I think the contradictions were stark. So I fully understand that, as a club, we over-indexed on trying to keep our players, and keep them happy but there were compromises that came with that.”
Scott emphasised, however, that much was right at Essendon, holding a high regard for his inherited assistant coaches (Blake Caracella and Daniel Giansiracusa included) and the development coaching headed by Cam Roberts.
The same Old Essendon?
Scott’s challenge also contains a political element, in that as an outsider, he must deal with the spectre of Old Essendon, as personified by Kevin Sheedy, Sheedy’s ally in recruiting boss Adrian Dodoro, and meddling coteries. Sheedy, who had campaigned for James Hird’s return and implicitly criticised the Scott appointment, was not an issue in Scott’s view.
Kevin Sheedy.Credit: Eddie Jim
“I respect his loyalty to the players that he coached,” Scott said of the Sheedy-Hird push. “That’s the least of my concerns. Sheeds and I have had a lot of chats, we’ve had a lot of board meetings. He’s fully supportive of the direction that I’ve laid out to the board.”
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