Coach Brad Scott reflects on a challenging year after Essendon’s final H&A match against Gold Coast SUNS. The result brought down the curtain on an unprecedented year for the Bombers with 15 AFL debutants and 44 players used.

Scott emphasised that the team's relentless fighting spirit and resilience in the face of unprecedented adversity are the true takeaways. The club's reliance on young, untested players wasn't by design but by necessity.

This exposure gives these young players invaluable experience that would have otherwise been impossible. This is a critical building block for the future.

Scott on… 2025 season

There's no doubt we limped to the line. But the really important thing for our group was we continued to fight through difficult circumstances. The players themselves never accepted the excuses. Our young players are excited about the opportunity to play. We certainly didn't start out the year to debut 15 players in a year, and we certainly won't be doing that next year. I think of the team that ran out there today, 15 of them played a fair bit of VFL footy this year, and have come into our side out of some forced their way in, and some obviously out of necessity, just due to the circumstances of our list. That's the opportunity for us.

The last quarter we had Blackiston in the ruck, Roberts inside midfield and Kako, that that was inconceivable at the start of the year. We put them in there tonight because they were our best options. While it was a challenging night against some really good players and a really good team, our players showed some signs that they're going to be good players for the future. So while it's really it's hard at the moment, it's just been an unprecedented season. But we’ve got to keep improving our list and getting some players exposure that wouldn't have got it otherwise. There’s a chance that holds us in good stead next year and going forward, but it's not guaranteed, so we've got to get to work and work on improving not just our list, but the players that we've got on our list currently.

Scott on… positives from the season

We take a lot from the season. We started this year thinking that we might have a couple of players come in. I mean, Isaac Kako played round one but to think that he was finishing the year stronger than he started. It is huge for us. The young players never complained. We played them in really important roles. We played them out of their depth at different stages and at times they didn't look out of place. Now over time they got out muscled and outclassed by more experienced players. But that's, that's an opportunity that you don't get. So, you know, as I said, it doesn't guarantee anything, but we've got exposure to a whole lot of players that wouldn't have got it otherwise. So that's we start next year with, assuming we take four or five draft picks, we're only going to have five or six players on our list who haven't played AFL footy. The majority of our list would think they're in our best side because they've played and at times they played some good footy.

Scott on… player movement

We're in a really difficult position, because we've got, by virtue of the fact we had four mid-season draft picks that come onto our list, we’ve got a list of 47. That has to come back. In the event that we take four picks in the draft, it's eight or nine players that have got to come off our list.

Scott on… coaching this season

We’ve had to be creative. We've had to be really creative every week to come up with ways to try and find a way to win, and pleasingly, with the coaching group, we've always gone into every game with an attitude that there is a way to get the job done. In my experience, this has been a challenging year, but they're all challenging for different reasons. When your team is not on autopilot, that's when you've got to do your best work. The coaching group, the assistant coaches, have worked extremely hard through difficult circumstances, and just like the players in the club, that will hold us in good stead if we continue to fight through. And I think that while it looks we should be optimistic about the personnel we get back, but that won't do it for us. So we've got to look to improve our list and not just rely on injured players coming back.

Scott on… off-season plans

The work we're going to have to do in the off-season is going to be significant. We're not in a position where we think that, okay, well, it's been a hard season, but we start a fresh next year. We won't be starting fresh next year either. We'll have to manage the early parts of the season with getting a few guys back throughout the year. But the pleasing part of that is that if we take four players in the draft, we'll have five players who haven't played AFL footy on our list, so we should have enough depth.