Despite a disappointing result against the Lions on the weekend, Senior Coach Brad Scott remains positive about the trajectory of his young side, pointing to signs of growth and the energy driving the group forward.

Scott also reflected on Sam Durham’s upcoming 100-game milestone, highlighting his impact at the Club and the persistence behind his rise. He also provided updates on Jye Caldwell, Darcy Parish and Mason Redman.

All of Scott's key talking points below.

Brad on… maintaining belief amid recent results

The mood's always been good especially when you compare to the situation we've been in, probably flowing on from last year and that's a big part of the challenge, when the seas are calm anyone can steer the ship.

It's a challenge, this year the mood's always been really positive and I think that the positivity and the excitement and the exuberance of youth helps that.

You've got young players who are who are trying to establish their careers, so understandably, they're quite focussed on just living out their dream, getting an opportunity to play for the Essendon Football Club and AFL footy is something that excites them.

We're disappointed because we understand that it's lumpy, but when you have a couple of positive weeks, like we did in Gather Round, it's hard not to just fall into the trap of expecting that it's just going to keep building without any setbacks.

We've regressed in the last two weeks and we're working extremely hard to turn that back around again.

Brad on… Sam Durham’s upcoming 100-game milestone

He's just a great guy, Sam.

He's much loved by his teammates, and I'm sure by the supporters that watch him play.

The way he attacks the contest, attacks the ball, he’s just a player that you love to coach.

I think it's made it all the more satisfying by the fact that every recruiter in the country didn't think he was good enough as an 18-year-old, and that's not to criticise the recruiters, they all thought that.

So for any aspiring 18, 19-year-old footballer out there who gets overlooked, go and have a look at Sam Durham's progression to 100 games.

It's not linear, it's not perfect, it's on the back of persistence, resilience, and a hell of a lot of hard work.

Brad on… Nate Caddy’s growth and leadership

Nate and I are working really closely on his game at the moment.

I talk to him a lot about his competitiveness, his quite explicit desire to lead our forward line as a third-year player, his explicit desire to lead the Club into a period of success and he's hungry for that and he's impatient.

I'm so excited about that because he's the ultimate competitor and he wants to do that with Essendon, he loves the place, he loves the environment, and he's not in the category of just trying to establish his career, he's now switched from being excited about playing AFL footy to now “I want to drive this team forward” and I've seen that growth in him almost week by week this year.

Brad on… what progress looks like

It’s very hard after a ten-goal loss to sit there, just talking about the positives.

But particularly for our fans when you watch us play, and when you see Dyson Sharp connect with Jacob Farrow, who kicks it to Nate Caddy, Sullivan Robey wins a stoppage against some high quality Brisbane, Australian midfielders and laces out Caddy, you get glimpses of what we're building here.

We'd love to see that for 125 minutes, not many teams do that when they're developing.

We've just got to keep working on the consistency and while no one enjoys not winning every week and it's incredibly difficult, even the best teams in the competition over time, they win two out of every three weeks on average.

That means that there are going to be some disappointments along the way.

So as a coaching group, we've got to keep coaching these guys and making incremental improvement, understanding that you don't want to be accepting of taking steps back, but you got to understand as a coaching group that young guys just don't play their first game and just dominate for 300 games in a row.

Brad on… handling pressure and expectations

The majority of the time, I've coached young developing sides.

We've recruited guys that are fully invested and they are starting to take responsibility for the fortunes of the Club's future, and that's what we want.

I often say it's a roller coaster, you can choose to ride it or you can jump off.

The flip side is also true when you're going well you can easily think that it's an easy game and it's all because of the things you do.

The reality is it is lumpy and my focus is always, whether we're winning, losing, whether we're playing in finals, preliminary finals or trying to emerge, it's always a focus on the things that are really important to the fundamentals of the game.

We work on this, like most clubs, relentlessly.

It’s a long arduous pre-season, it's a long season, there are going to be ups and downs and how you stay level and focussed is always the challenge.

It's not a normal workplace environment, you get instant feedback almost on a daily, but certainly on a weekly basis.

Being able to manage that both on the positive side and on the negative side, it's part of the skill of being an AFL player.

Brad on… updates on Jye Caldwell, Darcy Parish, Mason Redman

We expect him (Jye Caldwell) to play, I'm always reluctant because we're about to go out and train, so we'll see how he actually functions, but he's recovered really well.

Darcy Parish should be available, he was listed as managed, but with his history, we just feel when he's generally sore, we need to take a cautious approach, but he's jumping out of his skin to play.

As soon as Mason Redman gets through a main training session now, having played at VFL level, he'll be available.

Really, what we were looking for on the weekend in the VFL was for him to just to get through and to function well, to move well, get used to hitting bodies again, which he did.

I'll watch him really closely training today, but we expect him to be available.

Brad on… Brisbane review and external feedback

My understanding is that Brisbane analyse every club in this way, we're just the club that had it published.

It probably does give me an opportunity to talk to our players about certain things, and it forces me also to follow up certain players about what we think of them, because that's more important.

But we shouldn’t ignore the external views, whether that’s the public's views, but certainly when it comes from an opposition club who analyse you, you can choose to just ignore and pretend it's wrong, or you can think about it and analyse it, and if that's perception, go about changing it.