Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott - Will appear on AFL360 coaches night on Monday 24th

[Phone]

Think you will find Caddy has a slight injury issue. He had a bit of a hobble going for a while before he was subbed off.

he came up hobbling after one of his marks early in the 3rd

 

[Call Me Cake]

I get that we are young but geezus Christ

Not young, youngest.



Games like this are gonna happen and to be fair we haven't conceded such a score in a while. Crazy how more experienced sides are afforded such days yet somehow we aren't due to preconceived unrealistic expectations borne out of frustration.

Why should the current crop not be afforded the same opportunity to develop like other young sides? And to stumble like they have? Because you're agitated over history? That's something they had nothing to do with.

 

[andleanback]

Not young, youngest.

View attachment 2258017

Games like this are gonna happen and to be fair we haven't conceded such a score in a while. Crazy how more experienced sides are afforded such days yet somehow we aren't due to preconceived unrealistic expectations borne out of frustration.

Why should the current crop not be afforded the same opportunity to develop like other young sides? And to stumble like they have? Because you're agitated over history? That's something they had nothing to do with.

I know were are young, and yes this year will hurt, makes it even harder when you lose blokes like Ridley and Langford.
What I can’t cop it’s our experienced players like shiel McGrath McKay not willing to have a crack. Or players who have been around long enough just making dumb skill decisions on field.

 

[yodellinhank]

Not young, youngest.

View attachment 2258017

Games like this are gonna happen and to be fair we haven't conceded such a score in a while. Crazy how more experienced sides are afforded such days yet somehow we aren't due to preconceived unrealistic expectations borne out of frustration.

Why should the current crop not be afforded the same opportunity to develop like other young sides? And to stumble like they have? Because you're agitated over history? That's something they had nothing to do with.

We've also got Langford to come back, he was December born.

 

[Milanista28]

Hanging our hat on being young is stupid, being young and good is what we want, we're young and super average.

 

[andleanback]

Hanging our hat on being young is stupid, being young and good is what we want, we're young and super average.

Not hanging the hat on it, but it’s the reality of the situation. It’s not just young but couple with inexperience… coupled with senior leaders (outside of merrett) that don’t stand up and lead the charge

 

[Lore]

We've also got Langford to come back, he was December born.

We have three more late December babies now- McKay being one, plus Lewis Hayes and Zak Johnson.

 

[yodellinhank]

We have three more late December babies now- McKay being one, plus Lewis Hayes and Zak Johnson.

That's how you do it. Cop that Fremantle!

 

[BrunoV]

How does 2 x second year players, 1 x first year and 1 x first year 24 year old compare with the competition when it comes to young teams?

We're young because we don't have a lot of 30 year olds, aren't we? We have a lot of players between the ages of 22 and 29. Last time I checked they were prime years, unless we're Essendon and we're looking for the latest excuse.

 

[Old Campaigner]

How does 2 x second year players, 1 x first year and 1 x first year 24 year old compare with the competition when it comes to young teams?

We're young because we don't have a lot of 30 year olds, aren't we? We have a lot of players between the ages of 22 and 29. Last time I checked they were prime years, unless we're Essendon and we're looking for the latest excuse.

“Prime years” is relative to that player’s ceiling

 

[Milanista28]

Not hanging the hat on it, but it’s the reality of the situation. It’s not just young but couple with inexperience… coupled with senior leaders (outside of merrett) that don’t stand up and lead the charge

The senior core we have now are the problem, they'll be the problem in 2026 and 2027, we aren't going to stop playing McGrath, McKay, Redman, Draper, Parish, Langford, Ridley and Gresham.

We should welcome rock bottom and truly bottom out, it's the only way out of this mess.

Instead he'll back the senior guys in, bring Setterfield back and try ease the pressure.

 

[BrunoV]

“Prime years” is relative to that player’s ceiling

And 30 year olds are too old unless their ages are used to inflate averages so that Essendon can pretend it is the Baby Bombers.

 

[Call Me Cake]

Hanging our hat on being young is stupid, being young and good is what we want, we're young and super average.

What a dumb take. I'm not hanging my hat on something like that. It's literally the reality. You have to face the music and see just how unrealistic you've been coming into all of this. That's your fault, not the kids.

And young and good. What's your definition of good? Never succumbing to big losses? What fairy tale do you live in? Good while inexperienced should mean sometimes being commendable/putting in effort in the midst of faultering. If you think being young and good is being on fire every week that doesn't exist. Also shitcanning Ridley and Langford as problems when they didn't even play today just because you're pissed off earns you no points. Only thing it does is point out flaws in your rationale.

We're young because we don't have a lot of 30 year olds, aren't we?

Wrong. Most teams have older/150-200+ game players as their first choice players in their Best 23. The only time that changes is due to injury.

The bulk of our first choice that make up our Best 23 irrespective of injuries happen to be on the younger side/least experienced. It's spread thin. You need a heck of a lot more older players to tip the scale significantly enough.

Most of the experience we have is heavily weighted to the backline. Unfortunately you can't expect them to make up for the lack of experience in team defence elsewhere on the field every week.

 

[Keystone agony]

I think you have to run the gauntlet on letting Draper go now if it means Band 2, end of first round

Then our 5 top 30 draft picks are crucial

Hope the

5 top 30 picks
Durham
Martin
L.Hayes
Davey
Kako
Caddy
Duursma
Roberts
Caldwell

Can take us somewhere in 2029

 

[andleanback]

The senior core we have now are the problem, they'll be the problem in 2026 and 2027, we aren't going to stop playing McGrath, McKay, Redman, Draper, Parish, Langford, Ridley and Gresham.

We should welcome rock bottom and truly bottom out, it's the only way out of this mess.

Instead he'll back the senior guys in, bring Setterfield back and try ease the pressure.

I don’t know you can bottom more out that go nuclear and that just doesn’t work, the best option is to funnel in kids and slowly move on the older group which is what we are doing. Reality is kids take time. You aren’t going to win many games when your 2 pure forwards have played 11 and 0 games

 

[Lore]

How does 2 x second year players, 1 x first year and 1 x first year 24 year old compare with the competition when it comes to young teams?

We're young because we don't have a lot of 30 year olds, aren't we? We have a lot of players between the ages of 22 and 29. Last time I checked they were prime years, unless we're Essendon and we're looking for the latest excuse.

There’s youth and inexperience, there’s also lack of size and quality. List comparison here if anyone is curious; https://www.draftguru.com.au/lists/2025 We apparently drop to 18th if you take off Goldstein.

The only 100 gamer over 6’ tall and wearing our colours today was Mason Redman. All five 100 game players were originally drafted as fast attack-first players (Merrett, McGrath, Shiel, Gresham, Redman). Pair that with the baby giraffe act going on at the ends and you’re more or less fighting fate every step of the way.

McKay and Draper are your next most experienced, but they aren’t good enough to carry the entire back/forward line single-handedly. I don’t think they were ever expected to do that either, until this particular set of circumstances emerged. Langford and Ridley are basically our generals so losing them both at once given where we started hurts. Got kids running around trying to play TAC cup footy because they don’t know any better and there is no one around to tell them.

And then you’ve got the rest of the middle experience tier: Duursma, Perkins, Caldwell, Durham, Martin. None of them have really welded their magnet to the board in any particular role yet. Having 60+ games in 6 different roles doesn’t help— Result of historically poor player development strategy (if there even is one) and perhaps an over reliance on late bloomers and jacks of all trades for plugging holes in the list. We have quite a few who are not young but they’re not experienced with the level or confident enough with the game plan in any particular part of the ground to direct their teammates, and haven’t necessarily developed their craft in any one role either.

Injuries are one thing, but what it has done is expose our flaws and lack of depth.

 

[justlookingaround]

Not young, youngest.

View attachment 2258017

Games like this are gonna happen and to be fair we haven't conceded such a score in a while. Crazy how more experienced sides are afforded such days yet somehow we aren't due to preconceived unrealistic expectations borne out of frustration.

Why should the current crop not be afforded the same opportunity to develop like other young sides? And to stumble like they have? Because you're agitated over history? That's something they had nothing to do with.

I mean I would probably be affording us the same leniency if our squad had been built with anything resembling a focus on elite youth, but in practise it is an amalgamation of a multiple failures to launch, lucky supplemental top ups and consecutive botched draft hands

 

[quotemokc]

As much as we would have bemoaned watching it...

Ross Lyon was the coach we should have chased, say what you will about his game plan but he knows how to get players to buy in and play defence.

 

[thebigboy]

As much as we would have bemoaned watching it...

Ross Lyon was the coach we should have chased, say what you will about his game plan but he knows how to get players to buy in and play defence.

He was never interested in our job. Once St.Kilda put feelers out, that was where he wanted to be

 

[JayJ20]

We were the youngest team in R1 and (I think?) second youngest this week. Our fwd line consisted of a second year player, a second game player and a debut player.

Our forwardline wasn't the issue though. The younger players also weren't too concerning (except Hobbs).

Scott made the decision from what I know to bring in McKay and Gresham. McKay was a spud at North and we paid him over a million last year. What kind of a rebuilding team brings in average senior players and plays Heppell and Kelly to the end at the expense of a younger player like D'Ambrosio?

Why can Hawthorn clean out Mitchell, O'Meara and a host of others and we're signing average senior players to lengthy 6 year contracts and calling that a rebuild?

I'm not off Scott yet because I think the list he inherited is average but he'd better start playing players that will be here longterm and clean out average senior player at the end of the year so we can fully rebuild.

Which means no senior games for Shiel unless we're completely decimated with injuries.

 

[Yoda_]

How does 2 x second year players, 1 x first year and 1 x first year 24 year old compare with the competition when it comes to young teams?

We're young because we don't have a lot of 30 year olds, aren't we? We have a lot of players between the ages of 22 and 29. Last time I checked they were prime years, unless we're Essendon and we're looking for the latest excuse.

im actually starting to come around to this train of thought. Its not like we are young because we have 6 guys who were drafted in the last 6 months, or 4 guys who are only into there second year, we are young because half the team are 20 - 24 but have played bugger all.

 

[raskolnikov]

Can we even front run now?

Some of them can't even be bothered running.

 

[Yoda_]

to be fair to Scott, what long term moves could he make now that inherinenlty changes the fortunes of the team / list for the future?

Shiel to the reserves as he aint a HBFer is obvious. Who does he bring in? We've got kids, kids, kids in LKual, Clarke, Johnson

We had almost our first choice midfield group yesterday, Tsatas had a PB for clearances, disposals, inside 50;s, and although his TOG was low (apparently) he still had a fair amount of footy.

Jaxon Prior in defence was all hailed as good business when he was signed, we dont have anyone else to play medium defender.

McKay for Hayes is perhaps the obvious one, are we really going to play a debutant alongside a dude who has 10 games to his name (Zac Reid) in the two main defensive posts?

McGrath may be the one under fire in coming weeks, the kids were reasonably ok in the VFL yesterday. Nguyen, Johnson, Clarke all performed reasonably well but again, they are all 6 months into AFL careers.

The forward line has no one to even be considered apart from Menzie and he was sub yesterday.



Soo, all good to call out Scott but it's not like we are flush with options and depth.

 

[Yoda_]

Why can Hawthorn clean out Mitchell, O'Meara and a host of others and we're signing average senior players to lengthy 6 year contracts and calling that a rebuild?

This is my gripe with EFC, we are soo scared to lose face we either overpay or hold on to for so long they become valueless

We should have let Parish go in free agency, we shouldn't have signed McGrath to 6 years let alone if at all, Shiel could have got us a 2nd, maybe 3rd rounder 2 years ago.

We cant even re build properly, or bottom out properly.

 

[bomberlegend2007]

im actually starting to come around to this train of thought. Its not like we are young because we have 6 guys who were drafted in the last 6 months, or 4 guys who are only into there second year, we are young because half the team are 20 - 24 but have played bugger all.

And it would be fair to think that Rosa and co have had this conversation also. Which is why they went with a 3 year plan.

2024 - draft hard in a deep draft, which was surprising because we did it in an unannounced way. Already the signs are that we may have picked up a few gems.

2025 - invest in the draft again, nail the two top 10 picks or trade for Reid and build the side around him (similar to Brisbane and Neale)

2026 - Trade and Free Agency for tilt at flag.

2027 - same as 2026.

Scott mentioned about list turnover in the preseason. The signs of this being a tough year were already being presented.