{"id":580685,"date":"2026-04-02T12:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580685\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:13:11","slug":"essendon-coach-brad-scott-declares-hardest-part-of-rebuild-over-despite-losing-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580685\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon coach Brad Scott declares hardest part of rebuild over despite losing streak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essendon<\/a> coach Brad Scott<\/a> has boldly declared that the club’s “hard work is done” when it comes to rebuilding their list.<\/p>\n

The Bombers are in the midst of some significant struggles. In short, they haven’t won a game since May of 2025. <\/p>\n

Scott is under significant pressure himself, given the team has started the season with thrashings at the hands of Hawthorn and Port Adelaide, and a loss to North Melbourne. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: Fox Footy host apologises for politician hot mic insult<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Bartel’s plea to embattled Blues coach before crunch game<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: NAS caught ‘off guard’ by brutal sledge from ex-Origin star<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Essendon<\/p>\n

Essendon coach Brad Scott at training.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

But despite all of that, he claims the club has put together the list that it wants to lead the club back up the ladder.<\/p>\n

“You can put labels on all sorts of things, but when you turn your list over by 39 (players) in three years, I think the hard work’s done,” Scott told reporters.<\/p>\n

“We made decisions to push draft picks into the future to be able to bring in opportunities to invest in the draft.<\/p>\n

“If you look at the last three years, we’ve done that. It’s not (like) we need to strip the list back and rebuild it. That process started three years ago.”<\/p>\n

Essendon brought in three first round draft picks in 2025 as part of that list turnover, and four players via the mid-season draft in 2024 due to a spate of long-term injuries.<\/p>\n

They haven’t had a great success rate at the draft table in the 2020s, and club legend Matthew Lloyd believes that has been part of their wider issues<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"Zach<\/p>\n

Zach Merrett of the Bombers looks dejected after losing to the Hawks.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“They’re just crying out for … I just wrote down what Isaac Heeney has done at Sydney, or what Kozzie Pickett is doing for Melbourne … the club is crying out for someone through that midfield to be it,” Lloyd told Nine’s Footy Classified on Monday.<\/p>\n

“Since they drafted Zach Merrett, there’s just been no quality there.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got Sam Durham and Jye Caldwell, but they’re coming from a fair way back, they’re not A-grade talent. They’ve missed out on some (in the draft). Elijah Tsatas is playing VFL. Nate Caddy is the one that’s worked out.<\/p>\n

“Out of Dyson Sharp, Jacob Farrow and Sullivan Robey, I know it’s a lot of pressure on them, but the club is crying out.”<\/p>\n

If the Bombers have been the team that has struggled the most so far in 2026, the Western Bulldogs are up the other end of the power rankings.<\/p>\n

They have beaten the Lions in Queensland, the Crows in Adelaide and thumped GWS to start the season.<\/p>\n

Now, they enter as unbackable favourites against Essendon on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

\"Essendon<\/p>\n

Essendon coach Brad Scott.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But Scott isn’t in the business of trying to play it safe and protect the margin against the red-hot Doggies.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never been a person, player or coach, whatever, that is interested in reducing a margin,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You go out and you get on the front foot. In boxing parlance, you throw the first punch.<\/p>\n

“They can’t control how well we pressure and our intent in the contest.<\/p>\n

“They’re primarily where the focuses are. It’s pretty simple – pressure in the contest, win the ball, contested stuff, pressure when we haven’t got it, and then the execution with ball in hand.”<\/p>\n

Essendon will be without rising young key forward Nate Caddy for the clash, after he suffered a delayed concussion in the loss to the Kangaroos. <\/p>\n

As of Sunday night’s game, it will have been 317 days since the Dons won a game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon coach Brad Scott has boldly declared that the club’s “hard work is done” when it comes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-580685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580685","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=580685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}