There are no excuses for not putting away Fremantle - a side which has been anchored to the bottom half of the ladder since the start of season - according to assistant coach, Ashley Prescott.
Speaking on Weekend Rewind, Prescott said there were too many passengers in the game and not enough genuine contributors.
“There is no other way to describe it but very ordinary. It was disappointing across the field; again I think there were really only four contributors in the match for the whole day,” he said.
“I don’t think we were flat because of the great performance against St. Kilda but we were hurting from the losses of Paddy Ryder and Courtenay Dempsey.
“Sandilands was dominant all day, he is a monster of a man – we couldn’t capitalise on the ball when it went to ground and we needed too as we knew we weren’t going to win the tap outs.
“It’s hard to measure if it was a bit of fatigue that set in because we lost players and it puts a lot of pressure on the 18 on the field at the time, but they are just all excuses - we didn’t attack the way we needed to from the first bounce.”
Prescott shrugged off the suggestion that no Jobe Watson meant no Essendon, instead saying that the team just needed others to stand tall when he was tagged out of a game.
“I know that Jobe is brilliant in that area, when he has games like he did against St. Kilda there is no one that can stop him,” he said.
“I think it is more having an understanding and an ability to step up as a group when Jobe is getting tagged.
“Opposition sides aren’t going to let him run around by himself anymore and if he does have games like that the other players need to understand that and step up.
“We have the personal in there that can do the job and have shown that they can but there was too much left to too few on the weekend.”
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Prescott said he knows the Bombers have what it takes to bounce back from last week’s loss.
“I definitely think we are still up and about, our side has shown that they are both physically and mentally resilient,” he said.
“Matthew spoke to them brilliantly after the game against Fremantle about how we let ourselves down again and our inability to be consistent.
“But he also spoke of the opportunity that is presented before us and on any given day this team, that group of boys, can really lift and bring something out and do some special things.
“That is what we are focusing on going into this game. It’s full steam ahead for us now.”
