The Essendon Bombers powerbroker backing coach Brad Scott, but his support isn’t unconditional
In the summer of 2018 Essendon’s coaches were presented to members of the influential coterie group for a Q&A in the “Hangar”. Such sessions are commonplace at AFL clubs, where passionate, money-earning fans have access to coaches as part of group packages, with some costing well into five figures.
These forums help build relationships between the football department and leading fans, while also increasing valuable revenues if done well. This wasn’t it.
Hopes were high among the Essendon faithful at the time. Drug suspensions had been served, the Dons were exiting the final and the recruitment of established trio Jake Stringer, Adam Saad and Devon Smith from other clubs was supposed to take them even higher.
According to two sources present in the room, the coaches were surprised by the aggressive tone of the members of the group, who were highly critical of the club’s performance.
One football department staff member likened the nearly hour-long session to a “spray” on on-field tactics, while another was stunned by their level of authority that they would know better than the coaches and broadcast it as such. None of them had ever been subjected to such an incident in other clubs.
The takeaway for many in the room, according to sources, was the expectation from influential supporters that success would occur automatically through quick fixes and shortcuts rather than patience and perseverance.
Eight years later the Bombers are in a deeper hole and sit in 17th place without a win since last May. A defeat against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday would extend their losing streak to a club record 17.
Essendon are backing manager Brad Scott for now on their bid to return to title contention, but this is a club that has been divided for much of the 25-and-a-half years since its last flag and has shown little patience with outsiders. Just ask former coaches Matthew Knights, John Worsfold and Ben Rutten.
Will the Bombers get back to their old order, deal with their losses and several winters of misery and see out the draft-led plan, or opt for another short-term solution?
Bombers power broker Mark Casey, former chairman of the “Essendonians”, the club’s oldest and most influential group, has shown his support for Scott, whose contract was extended for a further 12 months until the end of this season last year, but this support is not unconditional.
He asked the Dons to carry out a club-wide review at the end of the season and use the findings to make key decisions, such as the future of the senior coach.
“Personally, I would have a 12-month plan to look at the whole team, the whole management, the board, the coaching staff and the whole evaluation of the club and not come to any conclusions in any area,” Casey told this imprint.
“I would then consider making decisions based on those findings, probably at the end of the year.
“There is no way of knowing at this point that I would start paying someone off-contract.
“It’s easy to leave the shovel at the coach’s feet because that’s the easy way out, but there’s no easy way out for Essendon. There has to be a thorough review for everyone and then some decisions have to be made based on that.”
The Bombers are desperate to lose their reputation as a club sympathetic to factions and members of powerful coterie groups operating behind the scenes with their own agendas.
The situation around Scott is strong enough to test the club’s mettle. Scott, a two-time Brisbane Lions champion and former North Melbourne coach, was far from red-and-black royalty; but neither was the coaching of the great Kevin Sheedy, who arrived at Richmond in great form and left an Essendon legend.
At 0-3, the club is currently making all the right noises about Scott, but if the win-loss record improves to 0-11 and the losing streak extends to 24, the pressure will mount. Melbourne in the Gather Round looks like the Bombers’ most winnable game until their Dreamtime clash with Richmond on May 22, almost a year removed from their last win.
The ghost of the club’s great star James Hird haunts the Hangar, although Hird refused to return to coach the club last year. Like some elements of the Bombers’ supporter base, Casey is not opposed to Hird returning.
“I think 50 percent of the fans want him back, 50 percent want him to continue,” Casey said. “It depends on who is the best man for the job. I don’t care if it’s James Hird or not, whoever is best for the role gets my vote. There should be no preconceived notions about anyone.”
Casey has made clear his full support for the board, led by Andrew Welsh, whom he knows well and respects in the property development world.
“You can shake the tree and the cage all you want, there is nothing anyone in the country can do for Essendon football club overnight, it has to be a well-managed plan,” Casey said. “I think Woosha [Andrew Welsh] He can do it – I hope he can. “He is a good man, very smart and very knowledgeable.”
As a respected former player and successful businessman, Welsh carries the clout that few recent senior figures at Essendon have. As the Bombers’ director of football, he helped develop a plan to withdraw the roster and renew it through the national draft before taking the top job.
Scott is now implementing this strategy wholeheartedly, taking the brunt of the club’s short-term hit in order to achieve long-term gain.
With an average age of 24.7, the Bombers have fielded the second-youngest teams (older only from the West Coast) in the first four rounds, and their 81.7-game average makes them the fourth-least experienced team. Among last week’s 23, there were 10 who played 30 games or less. The fourth oldest player on the list is 28 years old. All this begs the question of whether they are going too far with young people.
“We don’t have a lot of options,” Scott said. “We have chosen to invest in youth, sometimes we have to live with the short-term pain it can provide.”
The Bombers are searching for new depths now, but the rebuilding, resetting and realignment (however the club wants to frame it) begins at the end of 2023. There is great hope that the results from the last three drafts, headed by Nate Caddy, Archie Roberts, Isaac Kako, Sullivan Robey, Jacob Farrow and Dyson Sharp, will form the core of the club for the next 10 to 15 years.
So how many more losses can the Bombers absorb? A former manager at another club said they would wear that hat until fans and businesses returned and it affected profitability. More than 40,000 people turned out last week but fans fed up with 20 years of failure are running out of patience. Scott played his rallying cry.
“I think that’s the test of clubs when things are really tough. Your fans, I think they have a right to see fight and effort, of course, and that’s what we want to provide for them,” Scott said.
“But when things are tough there really is a measure of a club, how is the support? Because when things are going well it is easy for everyone.”
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