Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

[King Patty]

have said for a few years now that we needed more leaders. The Fiorini one may not be sexy but as a person and leader, apparently he is exceptional and one we will look back on favourably in a few years time.

I was against getting Parker when North did, but he would have shown our players a thing or two, possibly also taken pressure off Merrett.
Ideally you get a player like when we had Kelly, can beat his man and be a general at half back. But also cover midfield injuries mid game.

We are doing the rebuild now, like Eagles & Richmond but without early draft picks.

 

[Call Me Cake]

I would be curious to hear where people think the club should / is at.

Is it year 3 of Scott's tenure or is it year two of a committed rebuild? should we be pushing further up the ladder or are we playing the kids?

Personally I see this as year 2. Clean slate came with the final exit of Dodoro at the end of 2024.

The major worry is the exit of Barham. Purely on profile you'd have to assume Welsh is old Essendon and so the negative forces will have influence under him. Maybe he's smart enough to ignore them. Who knows.

View attachment InShot_20250327_004256068.mp4

 

[thepokey]

Yeah Barham wasn't the smoothest operator but he did what needed to be done. He seemed to have the right idea about where the club needed to go even if his execution wasn't always spot on. It's such a shame he and Vozzo didn't get a longer spell together in those roles. Welsh...I don't know, I don't trust him yet.

 

[The Dustbin]

How many times do we dish this shit up though?
I keep thinking we are past the non competitive, effortless games by those players who are supposed to lead - but here we are.

Hearing ya.

 

[Phone]

what about Caroline Wilson then?

I get that they were doing an "everyone is here" thing ahead of R1, even David Evans was around the joint, but yeah the Sheedy thing annoyed me.

 

[SydneyBomber]

even David Evans...

Disappointing to hear

 

[ant555]

have said for a few years now that we needed more leaders. The Fiorini one may not be sexy but as a person and leader, apparently he is exceptional and one we will look back on favourably in a few years time.


Just need to keep building on it and these young kids to follow decent leads

I have been driving that train

 

[Yoda_]

I have been driving that train

I probably bought a ticket off you old mate

 

[Yoda_]

Personally I see this as year 2. Clean slate came with the final exit of Dodoro at the end of 2024.

The major worry is the exit of Barham. Purely on profile you'd have to assume Welsh is old Essendon and so the negative forces will have influence under him. Maybe he's smart enough to ignore them. Who knows.

Im finding myself going down this train of thought too.

From Brad joining around the same tmie as Adrian Dodoro "stepping back", to giving it a crack in 2024 and finishing well off the pace (11th), and then a few roles changing hands. The club has obviously taken heed of the lack of talent these new faces have evaluated and gone to the last two drafts harder than we have this century it feels like.

Simpletons will only see this as year 3 of Scott's tenure and equate that to an upward trajectory when in fact it's to get worse before we even consider it getting better. 2026 could genuinely be ground zero of said re-build

 

[Albertross]

Norf supporters, yes, all 3 of them, told us that Brad will continue to play his favourites.

 

[Donakebab]

Norf supporters, yes, all 3 of them, told us that Brad will continue to play his favourites.

So who did he leave out of round one in place of a favourite?

 

[ydc55]

I think the next two weeks will decide Brad’s fate.
Losses to Port and North and he is cooked.
What bothers me is I don’t see improvement in our whole ground defence.
Both the stkilda game and the hawthorn game highlighted that.
I also see no imagination or dexterity in his thinking from the coaches box.
He is very passive in his moves and I do not think he has connected with our supporter base.
I think Brad will be happy with the payout and get back to the AFL.
He does not look to me that he has a real enthusiasm or passion for the job both at training and game day.

 

[nipst@r]

I would be curious to hear where people think the club should / is at.

Is it year 3 of Scott's tenure or is it year two of a committed rebuild? should we be pushing further up the ladder or are we playing the kids?

Playing the kids. Check our average age.

Most worried about welsh and club going back to being run like a local football club rather then understanding modern industry. This is bigger than concerns about Scott as coach.

Preferred barnham to be honest as he got rid of sheedy/hird/dodoro but feel we are going back to poor governance and old school influences under welsh.

Poor governance and local/old football club mentality has held us back more than any recruiter/coach/players etc over the last twenty years.

Play the kids, get a top 5 maybe top 3 pick as what does another pick 6/7 and c/b grade senior players get us.

 

[Mercurial89]

I think the next two weeks will decide Brad’s fate.
Losses to Port and North and he is cooked.
What bothers me is I don’t see improvement in our whole ground defence.
Both the stkilda game and the hawthorn game highlighted that.
I also see no imagination or dexterity in his thinking from the coaches box.
He is very passive in his moves and I do not think he has connected with our supporter base.
I think Brad will be happy with the payout and get back to the AFL.
He does not look to me that he has a real enthusiasm or passion for the job both at training and game day.

I think he was a good coach to turn a club and department around from obviously unprofessional standards to a more modern way of conducting ourselves.
I think that was what we wanted and one of the main selling points of getting someone who had worked at the AFL and had all the information on how other clubs were setup.

I think the jury is out on whether he is the type of coach and the way he runs thing is the best thing to nurture a collection of young talent and to ingrain a way of playing.

I don't think I would view his time as a failure, or that he is/was the wrong guy.

I'd look at it in the same way I would a real life scenario of a leader of a group in a war/uprising.
The leader that led you through that uprising and revolution, that inspired and was the agent of that change may not be the right leader to lead in the rebuilding a functioning society after the "battle" is over.

That does does not make them a bad leader, just not the right one for the time.


I think he should see out as much of his contract to shield the next coach from the losses that will inevitably come. Collect the talent, but as soon as it becomes evident that him being here is stunting the growth of the new crop that we will building the bones of our contending team with, it's time to push him out.
I don't think that time would be during a season.

 

[Vindicater]

If we fired Brad mid season then we would be stuck with Solomon.

God help us.

 

[ant555]

I think the next two weeks will decide Brad’s fate.
Losses to Port and North and he is cooked.
What bothers me is I don’t see improvement in our whole ground defence.
Both the stkilda game and the hawthorn game highlighted that.
I also see no imagination or dexterity in his thinking from the coaches box.
He is very passive in his moves and I do not think he has connected with our supporter base.
I think Brad will be happy with the payout and get back to the AFL.
He does not look to me that he has a real enthusiasm or passion for the job both at training and game day.

We have had no improvement in our full ground defence in 15 years.
Most of the senior players played under Rutten who designed Richmond’s team defence.
You would know full well that it takes leadership in the playing group to drive the on field defence.

Scott may lack imagination as far as tactics go but the team defence issue is more the quality of leadership in the senior players along with those senior guys being an issue with defensive actions.

Scott will not be under pressure if we lose the next two. There will be outside noise but the club actually knows where we are at.
I doubt there will be any internal pressure until late in the season if the results are still poor.

With the usual suspects who did not like the last coaches defensive plan and the total failure of the 2020-2022 drafts to produce the future are you really shocked ?

Personally I could not give a toss about Scott not connecting with the supporter base.

 

[Yoda_]

I think he was a good coach to turn a club and department around from obviously unprofessional standards to a more modern way of conducting ourselves.
I think that was what we wanted and one of the main selling points of getting someone who had worked at the AFL and had all the information on how other clubs were setup.

I think the jury is out on whether he is the type of coach and the way he runs thing is the best thing to nurture a collection of young talent and to ingrain a way of playing.

I don't think I would view his time as a failure, or that he is/was the wrong guy.

I'd look at it in the same way I would a real life scenario of a leader of a group in a war/uprising.
The leader that led you through that uprising and revolution, that inspired and was the agent of that change may not be the right leader to lead in the rebuilding a functioning society after the "battle" is over.

That does does not make them a bad leader, just not the right one for the time.


I think he should see out as much of his contract to shield the next coach from the losses that will inevitably come. Collect the talent, but as soon as it becomes evident that him being here is stunting the growth of the new crop that we will building the bones of our contending team with, it's time to push him out.
I don't think that time would be during a season.

Having Adrian moved on is a success no matter what happened on field.

 

[faible]

We have had no improvement in our full ground defence in 15 years.
Most of the senior players played under Rutten who designed Richmond’s team defence.
You would know full well that it takes leadership in the playing group to drive the on field defence.

Scott may lack imagination as far as tactics go but the team defence issue is more the quality of leadership in the senior players along with those senior guys being an issue with defensive actions.

Scott will not be under pressure if we lose the next two. There will be outside noise but the club actually knows where we are at.
I doubt there will be any internal pressure until late in the season if the results are still poor.

With the usual suspects who did not like the last coaches defensive plan and the total failure of the 2020-2022 drafts to produce the future are you really shocked ?

Personally I could not give a toss about Scott not connecting with the supporter base.

We had almost 0 pressure players in the forwardline on Friday night. Wright & Langford looked about as agile as the titanic, HEA is a first gamer who needs to build his tank (but was actually one of our better Pressure Acts players). Caddy, May and Perkins have the athletic tools to be better than they were on Friday.

For years now we've totally lacked front-half pressure players, the best we've looked was probably when Devon Smith was fit that first season and was an absolute pressure beast in the front half.

The sooner Kako and Unwin are available the better, I'd like to see how we look with Kako, Unwin and HEA all in the side to see whether that helps our full-ground defensive setup look better. Long-term we also need midfielders that run as hard defensively as they do offensively.

 

[joey_jo_jo]

We had almost 0 pressure players in the forwardline on Friday night. Wright & Langford looked about as agile as the titanic, HEA is a first gamer who needs to build his tank (but was actually one of our better Pressure Acts players). Caddy, May and Perkins have the athletic tools to be better than they were on Friday.

For years now we've totally lacked front-half pressure players, the best we've looked was probably when Devon Smith was fit that first season and was an absolute pressure beast in the front half.

The sooner Kako and Unwin are available the better, I'd like to see how we look with Kako, Unwin and HEA all in the side to see whether that helps our full-ground defensive setup look better. Long-term we also need midfielders that run as hard defensively as they do offensively.

its a weird one because Scott showed in early 2024 that he wanted to play a gamestyle based on high pressure in forward line and they were running with multiple small forwards including a not ready ADJ.

we were often winning the I50 count but not converting it on scoreboard. I put that down to the lack of scoreboard efficiency to poor ball usage into the 50, lack of tall options that were able to take a mark in congestion rather than on a lead plus our pressure smalls werent also goal sneaks so if ball hit the deck they werent taking the opportunities.
I remember Don The Stat did an interview with Dale Tapping around the mid point of the season and he talked about there being something like too much pressure so we needed to focus on quality entries vs quantity as the forward line was getting too congested and that wasnt giving our key forwards space to lead into.

seems like we've become stuck in no mans land since then game plan and selection wise, Scott and team lost faith in the small forwards on the list and started talking about the intent of the players to apply pressure rather than having pure small forwards. I hope now that we have Kako/HEA/Unwin on list that he will give a three small forward line a go.

 

[King Patty]

If we fired Brad mid season then we would be stuck with Solomon.

God help us.

does it matter who we have?

Whats worse a interim coach winning games or losing games.

The back end of the season looks a nightmare. Brad might want to be finished up by mid season.

 

[Zach Package]

We had almost 0 pressure players in the forwardline on Friday night. Wright & Langford looked about as agile as the titanic, HEA is a first gamer who needs to build his tank (but was actually one of our better Pressure Acts players). Caddy, May and Perkins have the athletic tools to be better than they were on Friday.

For years now we've totally lacked front-half pressure players, the best we've looked was probably when Devon Smith was fit that first season and was an absolute pressure beast in the front half.

The sooner Kako and Unwin are available the better, I'd like to see how we look with Kako, Unwin and HEA all in the side to see whether that helps our full-ground defensive setup look better. Long-term we also need midfielders that run as hard defensively as they do offensively.

I'm not sure what Scott expected when he selected 5 players who are fundamentally marking forwards who don't offer anything at ground level. They are all find and have merit, but you can't play bloody 5 of them. Who thought that would work?

 

[Yoda_]

Got my dates wrong, season 2026 will effectively be his 4th in charge of the list but imho, second of this actual rebuild. 2026 could really be ground zero and a tough year for the club. 2027 will be where we really need to see improvement.

2022
September - Brad Scott Appointed
October - list brings in mature talent (Setterfield, Weidemann) with Dodoro still in charge

2023
Essendon finishes 11th after a promising start to the season, 5th after round 17 but crash badly
August - Dodoro steps back, Rosa appointed
September - Mature talent brought in (Goldstein, Gresham, McKay, Duursma)

2024
Essendon finishes 11th after another promising start to the season, 3rd at round 16 but crash badly
Mid Nov - Adrian Dodoro settlement
Late Nov - AFL draft, list management identifies clear lack of talent and selects 5 teenagers in it

2025
Essendon finishes 15th with season from hell with injuries and players reportedly wanting out
Nov - AFL Draft, list management identifies clear lack of talent and selects a further 5 teenagers after taking 4 under 23 players in the MSD

2026
With the second youngest lists (23.7 yrs, behind only WCE, 23.5 yrs) a full blown rebuild is underway.



For what it's worth, these are the only drafts Dodoro as manager of the list management team had taken as many teenagers in the national draft. All times when we were forced too (2020 because Joe wanted to leave, 2016 because of the SAGA and finishing bottom and 2010 as head of the department)

2020 had Cox, Perkins, Reid, Eyre & Brand
2016 had McGrath, Ridley, Begley, Mutch, Clarke
2010 had Heppell, Steinberg, Browne, Davis, M.Ross

 

[faible]

its a weird one because Scott showed in early 2024 that he wanted to play a gamestyle based on high pressure in forward line and they were running with multiple small forwards including a not ready ADJ.

we were often winning the I50 count but not converting it on scoreboard. I put that down to the lack of scoreboard efficiency to poor ball usage into the 50, lack of tall options that were able to take a mark in congestion rather than on a lead plus our pressure smalls werent also goal sneaks so if ball hit the deck they werent taking the opportunities.
I remember Don The Stat did an interview with Dale Tapping around the mid point of the season and he talked about there being something like too much pressure so we needed to focus on quality entries vs quantity as the forward line was getting too congested and that wasnt giving our key forwards space to lead into.

seems like we've become stuck in no mans land since then game plan and selection wise, Scott and team lost faith in the small forwards on the list and started talking about the intent of the players to apply pressure rather than having pure small forwards. I hope now that we have Kako/HEA/Unwin on list that he will give a three small forward line a go.

It's not that weird IMO, I think a lot of it is just down to form / availability. We persisted with Gresham despite him being pretty cooked because we didn't really have an alternative.

Guelfi and Gresham have been poor / injured, our mediums and talls aren't all great pressure players and not necessarily the highest IQ footballers. Compare Gunston to basically any of our forwards. Our guys regularly lead in to the same space dragging defenders with them. Hawkins was also excellent at this.

Kako's been injured but would clearly be playing if he was fully fit. Unwin probably the same. HEA and Kako can both find the goals, Unwin has good physical traits to apply pressure. It doesn't necessarily solve the medium & tall forwards not having the same IQ as a Gunston, but it's a start.

 

[joey_jo_jo]

I'm not sure what Scott expected when he selected 5 players who are fundamentally marking forwards who don't offer anything at ground level. They are all find and have merit, but you can't play bloody 5 of them. Who thought that would work?

The frustrating thing is we've been here before. Vs cats in 2024 I feel like everyone on this board were pulling their hair out at how tall we went in a rainy game and then scott was bewildered by the lack of pressure applied.
I like alot that his done but selection has always been an issue. IMO either pick the strategy and select the right players for the strategy (even if theyre young/"not ready") or be flexible and tweak the plan based on available players.

 

[faible]

I'm not sure what Scott expected when he selected 5 players who are fundamentally marking forwards who don't offer anything at ground level. They are all find and have merit, but you can't play bloody 5 of them. Who thought that would work?

We don't have a lot of alternatives right now; McMahon and Gresham are fit, but neither really move the needle on the pressure front so it's much of a muchness there. Don't think there was any meaningful changes with the players we had available right now that would have improved it.

Kako seems likely this week, Unwin probably a couple of weeks away. Robey as well. I'd like to see a forward line with all of Kako, Unwin, HEA and Robey at some stage this year to see how it looks.