{"id":604846,"date":"2026-04-13T20:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604846\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:54:13","slug":"essendon-president-andrew-welsh-backs-him-to-coach-bombers-to-premiership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604846\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon president Andrew Welsh backs him to coach Bombers to premiership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jake<\/p>\n

April 14, 2026 \u2014 5:30am<\/p>\n

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Essendon president Andrew Welsh has strongly backed senior coach Brad Scott, saying that he believes Scott will be Essendon\u2019s next premiership coach.<\/p>\n

Welsh, in a wide-ranging interview that followed a briefing from senior figures with this masthead, said there was no reason to think Scott would not be the coach to deliver the drought-breaking flag.<\/p>\n

Welsh, who has taken a hands-on approach as president in the football area as the club continues to reset with a new chief executive and a list plan that started in 2023, said the Bombers had taken the \u201chard path\u201d of a youth policy and knew the heat would come on the club, but that it was the right path.<\/p>\n

\"EssendonEssendon president and former player Andrew Welsh made a bold declaration.AFL Photos<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re of absolute belief that Brad will be our next premiership coach. There\u2019s no reason for us to think otherwise,\u201d Welsh told this masthead, when asked about Scott\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing, as I said, the progress in development and across the team, we\u2019re all very aligned on the path that we\u2019ve taken around building the list and the players that we\u2019re bringing in, and we knew that there was going to be times with a young group that the heat will come, which is why we\u2019ve needed to remain connected internally.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig focus on that within the club because we know it\u2019s the right path in the way we\u2019re going about it. We just know it\u2019s probably the unfavorable path and it\u2019s the hard path, but it\u2019s the best path to set the footy club up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EssendonEssendon coach Brad Scott implores his players in last Saturday\u2019s win over Melbourne.AFL Photos<\/p>\n

Welsh added: \u201cAt this stage, all the metrics that we\u2019re following and the work that Brad\u2019s doing with the playing group, we see no reason why he\u2019s not going to be our next premiership coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourth-year Essendon coach Scott is contracted until the end of 2027. The Bombers would face a significant payout if they part ways with him.<\/p>\n

Welsh spoke to this masthead on Monday in an on-record interview that followed a briefing with key figures at the club, headed by Welsh and new chief executive Tim Roberts. Tellingly, Scott was also at the briefing, a contrast to Carlton\u2019s recent round of media interviews<\/a> with only chief executive Graham Wright and president Rob Priestley.<\/p>\n

Essendon had arranged the interview with the president before their victory over Melbourne on Saturday<\/a> which buoyed spirits and ended a 17-match losing streak. The message from the president was in line with the club\u2019s stance \u2013 that they would continue on their youth path, which focused on the need to source and develop elite talent and was mindful of the impact of Tasmania\u2019s entry on the coming drafts.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Archer<\/a><\/p>\n

Welsh acknowledged that the first two games of 2026 were disappointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first two weeks performances weren\u2019t as expected, quite disappointing. I think from the North Melbourne game, we had a poor quarter and a half. And then played quite well after that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo and a half quarters of the Bulldogs, very impressive the intensity was high. Defence was starting to gell, getting a few games into each other. And then on the weekend with Melbourne I thought that was our best full game performance in the last couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essendon have been training differently under new conditioning boss Mathew Inness, moving to a higher speed and intensity-style.<\/p>\n

Welsh also revealed:<\/p>\n

* That the club had taken on board Zach Merrett\u2019s suggestions after the star midfielder and now ex-captain sought a trade to Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it arose, list management and coaching went through and then presented back to football governance on why Zach shouldn\u2019t be traded from a football perspective, which was very compelling already \u2013 an elite player, and a leader of the club and a lot of respect as an Essendon person.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that point on, there was no need to engage on any conversations on trading Zach because it wasn\u2019t something that the board would be doing on advice from list management.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty evident from the start, and we knew the pressure would come. But we didn\u2019t want to back out of our strategy of what was best for the club, and that was to keep Zach and listen to Zach around the areas that we needed to work on as a club, which we did … and he\u2019s seen those changes have been made already, he\u2019s in the best frame of mind, he\u2019s performing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

* That the greatest challenge facing the Bombers was sticking to their plan of building a sustainable list.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest challenge is sticking to the plan of building a list that\u2019s going to last and a list that will give the club the ability to retain that status of being the biggest club, on and off the field, in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

* That the Bombers had only two elite players, according to Champion Data \u2013 Merrett and the injured Nic Martin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think on Champion Data we have two in the elite category, one being Zach, and the other being Nic Martin, who hasn\u2019t played … and didn\u2019t play much last year because of the ACL injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the club believes recent drafts have yielded elite talent, especially the 2025 crop (pick 10 Jacob Farrow was the AFL rising star for Gather Round<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Welsh said the Bombers believe they have elite talent within the list that will emerge. \u201cA high number that will, with through good development and good learnings, will move into that elite category over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Zak<\/a><\/p>\n

* That Essendon\u2019s list management team were searching for only specific types of experienced players \u2013 \u201ccertain type of elite players.\u201d The Dons have been fielding the second-youngest team in the AFL often this year and have only one player 30 or over (Merrett). \u201cWe need to make sure that we\u2019re an attractive club that can get a seat at the table once those conversations start.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Essendon would \u201clove\u201d to have Port superstar and free agent Zak Butters<\/a>, like many other clubs in Victoria. The Bulldogs and Geelong have been viewed as the leading contenders for Butters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019d be a list management decision, but I think we\u2019d be one of number of clubs that would love to have Zak Butters on our list. But it\u2019s what it takes and how to get there, I think, you know would be challenging with a lot of the other clubs that are out there and where they\u2019re at, but certainly a player I personally rate extremely high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"JakeJake Niall<\/a> is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 14, 2026 \u2014 5:30am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-604846","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\/604846","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=604846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}