Essendon have grit their teeth through some tough injury losses in recent weeks, with the overall buy-in of the playing group standing out to Senior Coach Brad Scott.

The ‘next man up’ approach that Scott has implemented within the group is bearing fruit, with groups of young and established players alike putting their hands up for selection following strong VFL form.

Scott again cited the evenness of the competition in this week’s press conference, as the Club eyes off an impressive prospect of moving to 6-3 when they face a strong Bulldogs outfit at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.

The talking points from Wednesday’s presser:

Scott on… selection, team morale

We’ve said each week that we’ve got guys in the VFL that we think are playing good footy.

Jayden Laverde’s back from a VFL suspension and played well last week, so he's clearly an option for us but we have a number of guys that can play tall or small that are in really good form.

While it’s extremely disappointing to lose another tall defender, we think we've got depth on our list to cover it.

The silver lining for us and where Senior Coaches have got to go really quickly, is to what's next. There’ll be opportunity for other players and fortunately, we've got players who are ready for that opportunity.

It's more the disappointment that the players in the group feel for the individual, but their attitude's been fantastic. This is the AFL industry that we're in, injuries happen and you can choose to stay on the rollercoaster of the ups and downs, or you can jump off and focus on what's in front of you. I think our group’s done that really well.

We keep repeatedly saying to the group, we'll pick a very strong 23 each week and we'll do that again this week and we'll go and expect to perform at the level.

I don't think you can deny the frustration, but it's your response to the frustration that counts.

Coaches talk all the time to players about control what you can control and Coaches have got to walk the walk there too. Clearly, we're disappointed, we're not denying that, but we've got to move on to what's next, stay focused on the things that we can control and the thing we can control right at the moment is giving opportunity to other players.

Those players can control being ready for the opportunity when it comes.

Scott on… Lewis Hayes’ mentality

We're obviously really devastated for all our long term injuries and all our season-ending injuries, but in your first game to do an ACL, it’s especially devastating for Hayesy, but his attitude is amazing.

He’s (doing) ‘prehabilitation’ work even before he has surgery to get stuck into it, so that's the exuberance of youth.

He's worked really hard to get his opportunity, and his attitude is really going to help him in his recovery.

Scott on… Nate Caddy

He’s a really exciting player and he’s worked really hard to get his opportunity.

I think that the trap we can fall into is that we just think he's really talented, but his performances have come on the back of really hard work. He got a really good taste of it last year and worked hard in the pre-season, he was in our top five in all of our running metrics for the pre-season, both speed, endurance and otherwise.

He's a pretty complete player in terms of his attributes, but he would be the first to say he's only just sort of scratching the surface of being a complete AFL player. He’s got all the attributes to be a complete player but he's got to put all of that together over four quarters.

It’s what the best players in the competition do, they don’t just do it in bits and pieces, they do it quarter to quarter, game to game, year to year - and he's only at the start of his career.

Scott on… the Bulldogs’ challenge

I think the strength of any team is that when they can lose a player like him (Sam Darcy), arguably they’ve improved their footy - not because of the lack of Sam Darcy, but because the other players that have been playing so well are now getting the recognition they deserve.

They’re a pretty formidable lineup. Some of their players - like a lot of players in the competition - are defying age, players post-30 are arguably in career-best form and they've got their Captain back.

If you look at the numbers when (Bontempelli) plays, it's a pretty significant difference to when he doesn't.

Scott on… Club standing, expectations

We've never tempered expectation, we just explain the facts as they sit.

We've been very clear that we are striving to win every game that we play, we're positioning our Club for a really stable base so that we can really set the Club up for future success.

I think the thing that's most pleasing over that time is the facts are that we've been able to do that for a certain extent.

We’ve reset a lot of areas of our Club, while still winning as many or a few more games than we've lost through that period.

We'll just stay focused on the long-term, and there are people at the club who are charged with the responsibility of doing that, but in the short-term, our challenge is to get out there and try and compete and the result will be what the result is.

We’ve won some tight ones, which I think can go either way, but I've been really pleased with the way that we've been able to respond both when we're in front and challenged or behind and coming back.

That shows good resilience and character within the group, but the results have been tight and last week's round demonstrates just how small the margins are between winning and losing.