AFL 2024 round 16 LIVE updates: ‘Dropped our bundle’: Scott annoyed by loss of composure in heavy Essendon loss

Bombers coach Brad Scott spoke to the media post game.

You won clearances, inside 50s but lose by 45 points, how do you sum it up?

We are disappointed. From those inside 50s, we scored at 25 per cent which is not enough. We have to look at that. There were some really good opportunities that we did not take. Defended well as they have historically, Geelong. Again, it is the foundation of the game to keep the ball in your forward half more often than not. We did not defend particularly in the second half. Probably when we were trying to accelerate the game and trying to accelerate the game and try to get back into the contest. That destabilised a bit in the back after the margin in the end, you try… To make up the deficit and take a few risks to try and score. Not only did we not score, we opened up our defence a bit. The margin, I don’t think tells the story but it is a fact at the end of the day. Again, 60 inside 50s and a loss is disappointing.

Did you go too tall in hindsight with the two rucks?

I thought our stoppage… I liked it around the contest and I do not think that hurt us at all. I thought he might have looked threatening than he actually was. And even the conditions, we like Draper’s ability to give us a contest in the forward half but we could not capitalise when the ball hit the ground. Early in the first half we did. I thought we looked really dangerous. The balance of our side was fine.

With the conditions, did you not consider making a late change? It was bucketing down pretty hard at the start.

Yeah. It did not look like it was going to. It rained a lot more during the day and at the start of the game looked fine. When I got to the coach’s box it was pouring rain and it was too late to make a late change. Peter Wright looked really dangerous early. The ruck set up do not cost us in my opinion. I think it is just too easy to say that we are too tall. I do not think that impacted us. We had enough ground-level support. Good around the contest. We thought that could give us ascendancy and it did around stoppage and there was some good stoppage work. It was more our ability to capitalise on opportunities.

Their run started with the kick to Sam Draper where he wasn’t given the free kick – what did you make of that?

We clearly lost momentum n the third quarter through a series of unfortunate events. And we didn’t. We were not set up behind the ball. Got transition. You give up, you don’t get a screen opportunity and it goes down the other end. We just had a patch where we lost total control of the game. That can happen through a variety of factors. What I am most disappointed about is that we lost momentum and then we lost our composure. We could not regain the momentum. We could not stabilise the game. That is the most disappointing part because, for the most part this year, things go against you in games of footy all the time whether it is the opposition doing great things or other things that happen that are outside of your control. As frustrating as it is, there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is control your response and our response tonight was really disappointing. Step back in that area for us which has been really good so far this year. Our ability to regain composure after losing momentum in the third quarter compounded and made it worse. Not only did we not regain the momentum, we cannot even stem the momentum they had.

How do your players steel themselves to get back in it?

I think that it is a challenge in elite sport that when things happen you get frustrated and that is a natural human reaction. But it is just a challenge to get back, not just the leaders but our whole team. We worked really hard on that and we were just not able to do it tonight. That is a thing in this game. You have to be able… Whatever happens, good or bad, you have to keep level and keep competing. And I thought we set the game up really well in the first half. I thought we had ample opportunity to be a lot further in front than we were at halftime. And then in a short period of time in the third quarter we lost momentum. To a certain extent dropped our bundle.