Six weeks ago to the day, Essendon president Andrew Welsh spoke to both chief football writers of Melbourne’s major metropolitan newspapers.
He declared to Jake Niall of The Age: “We’re of absolute belief that Brad (Scott) will be our next premiership coach.”
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Speaking to Jay Clark of the Herald Sun, Welsh said the Bombers would maintain a long-term approach, adding if it got “caught up in wins and losses it could really convolute where we are”. But he added “we expect improvement” and “aren’t going to accept things stagnating from a development perspective.”
After speaking with Welsh, Clark told Fox Footy’s First Crack: “The second half of that sentence is ‘we aren’t going to accept things stagnating from a development perspective’. That is the most important asterisk in football, because it puts Brad Scott on the hook.
“If things flatline or go backwards, as they have over the past week, then he’s fighting for his job.”
Scott lashes Bombers after horror start | 08:49
Six losses by an average margin of 38 points later …
Scott on Tuesday was sacked as coach of the 18th-placed Bombers with one year remaining on his contract.
The Essendon board decided “over the weekend”, according to Channel 7’s Tom Morris, that if Scott wasn’t going to be Essendon’s coach in 2027, “it would be best to make the call now”.
Six weeks after the president trumpeted the club’s faith in “our next premiership coach”.
Some would argue: “What else is the president going to say at that time?” Ultimately, any hint of public disbelief in your coach – whose team was 1-4 after Gather Round – fans the flames on an already delicate situation. And Welsh won praise for being so defiant and supportive for his coach at a club that had been riddled with factional voices for decades.
But on paper, this is an incredibly dramatic backflip.
Essendon club president Andrew Welsh. Picture: David CairdSource: News Corp Australia
Scott was appointed Essendon’s coach in September 2022 following an extensive that began with a shortlist of over 22 candidates. Four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson was near the top of the Bombers’ priority list, but when he chose the Kangaroos instead, the Bombers settled on Scott – a 10-year North Melbourne coach himself.
Scott in his first year in charge guided the Bombers to sixth on the ladder with a 7-6 record at their 2023 mid-season bye. But they’d win just three more games for the season. Their final two matches – a 126-point loss to the Giants and 70-point loss to Collingwood – were embarrassing.
The Bombers got busy in the off-season. They brought in three free agents – Todd Goldstein, Jade Gresham and, most notably, Ben McKay – traded in Xavier Duursma from the Power and took three national draftees: Nate Caddy (Pick 10), Luamon Lual (Pick 39) and Archie Roberts (Pick 54).
“I’d be pretty bullish on them,” ex-Hawthorn star Ben Dixon said of the Bombers to foxfooty.com.au ahead of the 2024 season.
“They’ve got to be a finals contender, they have to be, it’s a non-negotiable.
“They’ve added in the bookends. There’s probably no excuse to not make finals to be honest.”
Rinse and repeat.
Brad Scott had a rollercoaster Essendon tenure. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images
This time, after Round 12 of 2024, they were 7-3-1 to sit second on the ladder. Top-four was on the cards, let alone a finals berth.
But they’d win just three more games for the season to dramatically drop out of the finals frame.
“I’m speaking here now mostly to our fans who are bitterly disappointed and I can assure them that our players, whether they believe it or not, are more disappointed than anyone else,” Scott said after a one-point loss to Gold Coast.
“We’ll have a concerted effort in the off-season, don’t worry about that.”
Unlike the previous off-season, the Bombers didn’t go hard in the trade and free agency market, instead ensuring they had the draft capital to match a bid on NGA young gun Isaac Kako while trying to find some gems at the back-end of the draft.
Rinse and repeat – but on an unprecedented new level.
The Bombers sat 10th on the ladder with a 6-4 record after Round 12. But their percentage of 85.0 was more reflective of a team trending downwards. And, boy, did Scott’s Bombers fall at speed, losing their last 13 consecutive games of the season by an average margin of 42 points.
The injury toll was as brutal as any AFL team has ever experienced. Essendon used a whopping 44 players across their 23-game season. Fifteen(!) of them were AFL debutants. A spate of long-term injuries meant they had to take four players in the mid-season draft.
Brad Scott has been sacked by Essendon. Picture: Michael KleinSource: News Corp Australia
“No doubt we limped to the line,” Scott said after a 95-point loss to Gold Coast.
Despite the injuries, Scott – who’s always been, unashamedly, a build-from-the-draft guy – was constant in his messaging to Essendon fans.
Asked directly on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 in March last year if the Bombers were in “full blown rebuild” mode, Scott said: “You can say what you want. The club always talk to me about ‘what are we messaging?’ Ultimately, you message through your action.
“We made some changes at the end of last year with personnel, list, chose to go to the draft. We hold two first-round draft picks this year and two second-round draft picks – I think it’s pretty clear what you’re doing.
“But I wouldn’t concede that we’re not capable of competing every week.”
Any doubts around whether the Bombers were in rebuild mode were quashed by the end of the national draft in late 2025.
Essendon took five players in the national draft – three of them in the first 13 picks. All five have played AFL games so far in 2026, but not out of necessity. Sullivan Robey, Jacob Farrow, Dyson Sharp, Max Kondogiannis and Hussien El Achkar all look like strong picks at this (very) early stage.
Just over one week ago, Scott said he expected Essendon to see through its plan under his leadership, insisting there were no markers he had to hit.
Scott grilled on 2026 win-loss ratio | 04:03
“Everyone has been part of that strategy and plan … our president and CEO were on the board when the strategy was put together,” Scott told AFL 360. “So they are all in on it.
“But I don’t think like that (on whether he has the club’s backing). It’s just unhelpful.
“My job is to lead this strategy through and I just do my job. I don’t worry too much about what might happen in the future.”
Clark on First Crack declared at the start of this month Scott faced “the most important six weeks of his coaching career at Tullamarine”.
The Bombers were scheduled to face GWS in Sydney, Fremantle and Richmond at the MCG, West Coast in Perth, then Carlton and Melbourne at the MCG over the six weeks.
They were brave against the Giants, horrendous against the Dockers and, against fellow cellar-dweller Richmond, were hit with an eerie sense deja vu as five players copped mid-game injuries in a deflating loss that saw their season hit an all-time low.
Essendon LAST after Richmond upset | 02:08
Dual premiership Kangaroo David King wrote on X in the last quarter: “The game.” It was undoubtedly a suggestion this was “the game” that might’ve ended Scott’s tenure as Bombers coach.
Commentators suggested little would be gained for Essendon moving Scott on now, especially after a loss to Richmond where it was, as Scott said post-game. “hard to separate the performance from the circumstances”.
King, though, was ultimately right. Scott lasted for just four of the six weeks Clark flagged.
Despite Scott’s focus and the president’s public words of affirmation, the losses became too much for Scott to keep his job.
Among the rollercoaster under Scott, an underlying flaw has plagued his team: They’ve been too easy to move the ball against and too easy to score against. Their defensive issues have never fully corrected in three-and-a-half seasons.
“In the end, you end up with another smacking, and I think the Essendon fans are getting a little bit sick of the same stuff,” King told First Crack after Essendon’s 63-point loss to Port Adelaide.
Merrett calls for patience for Bombers | 01:39
Despite the abrupt ending on Tuesday, the sense was Scott never lost his Essendon players.
But this is a football club with an impatient fan base, sick of consistent mediocrity. And rightly so, since it’s been 7935 days since the Bombers’ last finals win.
The sense was Scott wasn’t taking over an Essendon list in rebuild mode. But that’s the situation it quickly developed into – a situation he was fully aware of.
“I think it takes a special kind of lunatic to lead this sort of thing,” Scott said last week.
“If you weren’t focused on the club’s future and it was just about you and your position, you’d have a very different strategy.”
Scott always had the long-term view at Essendon.
Yet, as King has consistently suggested during his years as a Fox Footy pundit, the wins and losses eventually get you – and that “rebuild coaches don’t survive”.
Even if the club’s hierarchy believe they have their next premiership coach in the chair.