Despite a challenging 2025 season on a variety of fronts and their current losing streak, Essendon Senior Coach Brad Scott is doubling down on the product his side will become. 

Citing the unwavering support of a Dons fanbase that’s embraced the debut of Rookie Jayden Nguyen amongst 13 other youngsters this season, Scott was optimistic in his review of the 14-point defeat to Sydney on Saturday. 

Scott’s talking points post-game:

Scott on… The ‘unbelievable support’ of the Club’s build

Essendon’s a really proud Club with a really proud supporter base, a frustrated supporter base at the moment.

We want to go out and compete, and our fans watching know we’re giving maximum effort every time we play. 

It’s not ‘when’ we’re a much better side than we are – we’re going to be that. It’s not ‘it’ll be there in the future’, we’re working every game to try and get there.

It’s been hard for our fans but the support’s been really unbelievable. 

Essendon fans have stuck with our Club during much harder times than this, we don’t take it for granted but I’m consistently amazed at how unbelievable our supporters are. 

All I can say is when it turns, I want them to enjoy it more than anyone, and it will. We’re just going to keep fighting. 

Scott on… morale 

We’ve been very well led by our playing group. As I keep saying to the players, this is tough but anything worth doing is tough – you’ve got to persevere through the tough times and (Merrett) is doing that really well. 

We do have to quite consciously work on the morale of our group, we can’t just say ‘it is what it is’ – we’re working really hard to keep the players up. 

We’re searching for the positives in every situation we’re in. 

Scott on… Jayden Nguyen and Lachie Blakiston

(Nguyen) didn’t do anything I didn’t expect him to do. He’s come through the NGA, he’s a fighter.

Our forwards hate playing on him in pre-season, he competes, he’s tough as nails, he’s incredibly coachable. He’s a terrific young man and he deserved his opportunity.

We didn’t play him because we wanted to expose him to the level, we played him because we thought he was the best matchup for Tom Papley.

We were really keen to see Blakiston in the ruck, we’ve been really impressed with him as a defender, particularly seeing as he’s never played there.

An in-form Brodie Grundy is a real challenge (so) I thought on balance, our clearance work was quite exceptional. 

Scott on… reviewing the game

No excuses, we came here with a plan to execute, get the job done and we fell just short of that.

I thought our fight and effort was fantastic throughout the game but we were clearly outclassed early.

Sydney outworked us to the contest (in the first half). We obviously understand that a lot of our players are early in their careers but this is an accelerated learning curve that we’re after.

Young Jayden Nguyen, you come in and play on Tom Papley – it’s a baptism of fire but we’re looking to try and accelerate the development of players like Jayden.

We played all four of our mid-season draft picks and a Category B Rookie today, so that’s always going to be a challenge in terms of cohesion of the team but it’s not an excuse.

What our supporters want to see is glimpses of the future but also absolute effort and intent every single week.

I don’t think our supporters would’ve watched that and thought there was a lack of effort from our players - maybe a lack of class and experience - but we’ll keep working on that.

I stress, we’re not experimenting. We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

Scott on… Archie Roberts’ impressive season

He came into our side late last year and showed us straight away he’s got great potential. 

It really drove his off-season and he had a really tangible idea of what playing on these stars at AFL level is like, and it gave him great intention for what he needed to work on.

Archie’s been, already at 19, he’s a player we look to in a leadership role. That’s a real credit to him and we’re rapt to have him.