Dean Solomon is the first to admit his last week has felt longer than normal since taking the reigns as Essendon’s Interim Senior Coach, but he feels his group are settling into a good rhythm after a whirlwind period.

Following up from the lengthy Perth road trip with a huge King’s Birthday Eve clash against Carlton this Sunday night, the Bombers will gain at least two of its experienced core back in their push to end the Blues’ recent run of form.

For Solomon, the focus remains on building a game style which can bear fruit in an important 12-week block for the Club to close out 2026.

Solomon on… bouncing back after a big week

It probably feels like it’s been a (month-long week) but we’ve found a bit of rhythm - last week was a unique week.

We got across to Perth as a group and then we gathered ourselves, reviewed well. The boys are in good spirits and looking to train well today.

(The playing group are) pretty good this week. Obviously, last week, as I’ve said, it was a shock to them all. They were really close to Brad and the two Bens (Jacobs and Robbins) – really loyal to those guys and that's a good thing.

We got the game out of the way. We went to Perth, we've come home and the energy is really good. We want it to be a player-led environment and they’re driving this week, which is really encouraging.

We’ve still got plenty of games to go this year and we want to prove something as a football club.

Is it a relief (to get the week over with?) I think it's just part of our journey, unfortunately. It's not what we thought was going to happen. It is what it is, and we're looking forward to building a brand of footy that our members can come and enjoy on the weekend.

Solomon on… ‘Freeze the ‘G’, the Danihers

It's always important, isn't it? The Danihers are an amazing family, what Neale did, and continues to do with his legacy is incredible.

Terry spoke for a period of time, it's just a really important family for our football club and an important weekend for our football club, and it’s good we get to respect that.

Solomon on… ‘results’ vs. ‘development’ as the primary focus 

I think winning is an important part of development. I'm a competitive person, so I don't enjoy losing, but no, we’re obviously just focusing on our week and winning it in the way we develop, educate, the way we train around our standards. 

We feel that puts us to the best spot to have an outcome on the weekend. 

We look at a few the things we did on the weekend against West Coast, the way we played, it wasn't the way we wanted to look. But we understand it was a unique week. 

The things that we tried to implement, from a game plan point of view, are going to take a bit of time, a couple of weeks, so we sort of focused on them, mostly. 

Solomon on… Carlton, potential returns 

Of course (the blood still boils when I see Carlton on the fixture). 

They’re an archrival of ours, it’s a big stage on the MCG Sunday night, so we're looking to get after them. (We lean into the rivalry storytelling) a little bit, but I mean, every game is really difficult and it's a big challenge coming.

They’ve been through a tough period of time and bounced out the other side with three wins. We really are focusing more on ourselves and how we chase a consistent style of footy. 

(Stopping that Carlton run) is what we're planning to do. I worked with Josh Fraser up at the Gold Coast, coached him up there and he’s a great human. 

We understand what they've done in the short-term of the last three weeks has been really exciting, but we're obviously planning to take that away. 

(Patrick Cripps) is moving as well as he’s moved for a long period of time as well. As a coaching group, we’ll go back after training today, discuss it further – trying to nullify his impact is going to be a massive challenge, but we look forward to it. 

Those two (Durham and Redman) will be back, Ridley potentially – we’ll see how he feels after training and discuss with him where he's at.

I think we’ll get something like 10 players back between now and post-bye, which would be significant for our footy club.

Solomon on… the tasks at hand

My sole focus right now is with this football club, these players and staff. I can't look outside that bubble because it'd be distracting for me and I wouldn't be doing the right thing. So my pure focus right now is on my role and I've got a big role to play on how we finish this year.

I think our assistant coaches have been incredible in their last week, they've all stood up. Obviously, we're two coaches down, but it's given other coaches a little bit more exposure to certain things that hadn't been exposed to in the past just due to the circumstances. So I think currently right now we're operating quite well. 

We're empowering each other and relying on each other, and we're working well in collaboration. 

I have my own philosophies that I’ve built over the years here and at other clubs, we’ll try to implement a few of those in the back end of the year. It's a really unique circumstance, isn't it, but in a short period of time if you change too much, that can be disruptive as well. So we’re just trying to find the balance with that. 

Solomon on… past players attending open training

It’s great to hear that they're here and I mean, everyone's welcome to our footy club. 

We'd love to see fans, past players, anyone down here in the last 12 weeks to support this group. There's a good young group here who are hungry, humble and want to hit that finishing line with momentum.

I'll welcome all people who want to come down and support us.