Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cHe\u2019s got a hamstring strain, almost certainly. We subbed him out immediately,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he feels his hamstring… there\u2019s no point sugar coating it. He\u2019ll go get a scan (and) I hope to God I\u2019m wrong, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly frustrating, devastating \u2014 all the words that you can possibly think of to describe it. But as repetitive as it sounds, there are plenty of examples through the competition who have had to fight setback, after setback, after setback. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you can come through it, you come through it a more resilient player and a more resilient person. We rate him so highly. He\u2019s so important to our club.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I said, hopefully I\u2019m wrong. But when he feels his hamstring, then I think it\u2019s pretty obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dogs down Dons with absolute ease | 02:10<\/p>\n
Beyond the crucial loss of Ridley, Essendon\u2019s undermanned defence was ruthlessly exposed as the Bulldogs dominated with uncontested, free-flowing football.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs kicked their highest score since Round 14 last year against Fremantle, with brutal first and third terms the nucleus of their monster win.<\/p>\n
Aaron Naughton kicked a career-best seven goals for the night, while Sam Darcy continued his meteoric rise with half a dozen majors of his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe margin\u2019s obvious on the scoreboard, but the margins between contests are thinner than people probably appreciate. They just got us bit by bit, over four quarters which added up to a big margin,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
In the most cruel of ways, Scott\u2019s club has \u2014 both literally and metaphorically \u2014 been hamstrung this season, as the senior coach continues to try and make the best of a brutal situation (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThe player we could probably least afford to lose in defence, we lost. It exposed a pretty undermanned, undersized, vulnerable defence. (We) got it inside 50, almost enough to be able to compete, but there are challenges all over the ground for us at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a consistent message to our players at the moment that it\u2019s a difficult situation we\u2019re in, but you can choose which way you respond. You can make excuses, you can identify all the things that aren\u2019t working for us (and) going against us. Or the things the players can\u2019t control \u2014 like availability \u2014 or we can focus on improvement and getting better through adversity. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really the only way you get better. When things are going really well, you get a little bit of reward for effort … but real improvement comes through difficult times, and no one enjoys it. But when you do hard things, you improve as long as your attitude\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bombers\u2019 percentage slipped to just 71.9 after the Round 20 loss \u2014 now only ahead of Richmond and North Melbourne \u2014 as they head into next week\u2019s clash with Sydney desperate to snap an eight-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
Tonight\u2019s loss was their third for the season that was 15 goals or more, after a 91-point loss to the Bulldogs and 95-point loss to Geelong.<\/p>\n
Foxfooty.com.au requested to speak with an Essendon player after the loss, but was denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A candid Brad Scott has once again pointed to the inexperience plaguing his injury-hit Essendon side, as another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19060,2095,64,63,696,22400,11231,2105,22391,4517,22393,4447,22397,22396,5332,22394,2041,2067,22395,668,22392,6858,3247,12105,22401,85,22399,2614,22398,4899,698],"class_list":["post-22159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aaron-naughton","tag-america","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brad-scott","tag-eight-game-losing-streak","tag-essendon-bombers","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-growing-casualty-list","tag-hamstring-injury","tag-hamstring-strain","tag-hamstring-tightness","tag-hybrid-defender","tag-key-player","tag-losing-streak","tag-monster-win","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-point-sugar-coating","tag-press-conference","tag-real-improvement","tag-richmond","tag-robert-cianflone","tag-sam-darcy","tag-senior-coach","tag-sports","tag-teetering-finals-hopes","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-veteran-coach","tag-virginia","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}