Brad Scott unleashed on the playing group<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe 49-year-old stated some of the players were playing selfish footy and that many didn\u2019t have the will to get down and dirty when the contest got away from them.<\/p>\n
The Herald Sun\u2019s Jon Ralph was blown away by the comments from the man in charge of the club who sit dead last on the ladder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an extraordinary press conference from Brad Scott,\u201d Ralph wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdmitted some players didn\u2019t have a will to defend, admitted some went into self preservation mode, admitted there is a cultural problem with older players not digging in when it gets tough. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven on top of diabolical skills and players fumbling and handballing way too much. Just wow.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Nate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5df6da316b19e915a965ccd8597a8c23.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The horror displays against the Power and Hawks left King pleading for the club to make sweeping changes to the playing group ahead of Saturday\u2019s match against North Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve only got one way to go from there, and that\u2019s to omit the players that are playing selfish footy and keeping you on this path \u2014 the tram tracks of not making any alterations or visible changes,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just words, they\u2019re always words. They talk about pressure rating \u2026 I had a look at them last week, 161 was their seventh-worst game for pressure in five years. I thought: \u2018It can\u2019t get any worse than that, going to play Port Adelaide\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201c149 today, their second-worst result on record \u2014 just unbelievable numbers. You would think that the one thing they could guarantee today, is an attitude and manic level of effort and desire to throw yourself across a boot if you have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, you end up with another smacking, and I think the Essendon fans are getting a little bit sick of the same stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bombers will enter the contest on Saturday night at Marvel Stadium as the underdog and will be without Mason Redman and Dyson Sharp after both suffered injuries in Round 2.<\/p>\n
In a worrying sign for the club, the Kangaroos produced a stunning performance in their Round 1 clash by knocking off Port Adelaide by 46-points.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, the same club that just rolled the Bombers to the tune of 10-goals \u2026 lost to their next opponent by around 8-goals in their season opener.<\/p>\n
Fans who have more likely than not already lost patience with the club will be hoping they can finally get on the board in 2026, if not they could be staring down the barrel of a 0-4 start to the season.<\/p>\n
The Bombers will take on premiership contender the Western Bulldogs in Round 4.<\/p>\n
Originally published as \u2018Diabolical\u2019: Club\u2019s damning crisis exposed after another 10-goal defeat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon may have only played in two games, but the early signs are not great for fans of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,9199,275670,64,63,689,55,639,275671,696,275666,1818,275669,11231,275665,12090,2105,7492,88449,681,275667,647,14426,677,6082,41653,275662,668,28008,23508,33195,275661,275663,1124,85,275668,660,275664,698,25581],"class_list":["post-558555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-alarm-bells","tag-alarming-crisis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-bleak-start","tag-brad-scott","tag-damning-crisis","tag-david-king","tag-defensive-inability","tag-essendon-bombers","tag-extraordinary-press-conference","tag-final-quarter","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-james-mckern","tag-jon-ralph","tag-manic-level","tag-melbourne","tag-nate-caddy","tag-oceania","tag-port-adelaide","tag-premiership-contender","tag-preservation-mode","tag-press-conference","tag-quinn-rooney","tag-sarah","tag-season-opener","tag-selfish-footy","tag-seventh-worst-game","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-tram-tracks","tag-victoria","tag-visible-changes","tag-western-bulldogs","tag-zach-merrett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558555","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=558555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}