In defeat to Brisbane, Essendon still won their share of admirers on Thursday night.
Senior Coach Brad Scott is confident his playing group will take plenty of confidence from their inspired play out of the 18-point defeat, especially from a young crop that brought a real contest to the reigning premier for most of the night.
Inspired by a monstrous 16-disposal third term from Jye Caldwell and the continuing emergence of Nate Caddy, the Dons produced arguably one of their most promising showings of the year to date on the road.The agenda from Scott’s post-game presser:
Scott on… a step forward
(It’s) a huge step forward for us in terms of everything – character, fight, effort, contest, exuberance of young players who don’t use that as an excuse.We have expectations, we think those players we selected are capable, that’s been our message to them and they held up their end of the bargain (tonight).
There were a number of critical contests where our players stood up but to Brisbane’s credit, they’re a good side and when challenged, they respond.
Scott on… the final term
I don’t think we necessarily let it slip, they’re just a good side who can pounce on your errors as good as anyone in the competition.We probably had a few 12-point plays throughout the game – in the end, that’s probably the biggest difference in it.
They were dominant clearly to start the game and jumped us, but I thought we wrestled our way back into the contest really well.It wasn’t as if I felt like we let it slip, we fought our way back in, got in front and they responded as good teams do.
Scott on… the influence of Caldwell and the midfield unit
If you can’t at least compete really strongly in the contest (against Brisbane), it’s going to be a long night.Caldwell, Martin, I thought all our midfield really responded after the first quarter, where we were comprehensively beaten early.We were able to give our forwards a look and we’ve got some pretty exciting forwards.
Scott on… Caddy
I think he’s going to learn that he’s capable of challenging the best key defenders in the competition.I thought that’s the best game I’ve seen him play. Not just because of the goals over his head and that sort of stuff, he’s just a really impressive athlete and he can do things that others can’t.
When Peter Wright’s in the ruck and Todd Goldstein’s having a well-earned rest, he’s holding up a forward line, so I can’t recall too many 19-year-olds doing that.
Scott on… Durham and Gresham playing through discomfort
I spoke to the medical team at quarter time and said ‘no risk’ (regarding Durham).They assured me that it’s uncomfortable but there’s no risk, so once that was established, it was a matter of function.
We used him more forward than we probably would’ve liked, but he’s really influential wherever he plays. He’s gotten through the game now, just a rolled ankle – he’ll ice it up, recover in the next 10 days and be fine.
(Gresham’s) got a corked hip. We thought he looked pretty proppy there in the first half but I thought his second half was exceptional.
All phases (are what we can apply to the rest of the season).
I thought we were able to defend reasonably well but not well enough over the course of the game to be considered a top-tier side.I say it repeatedly, the foundation of the game is the contest and that stood up fairly well tonight.
The silver lining for us (from these circumstances) is we get some flexibility in our team, we play players in different roles and we learn a bit.We learnt more tonight and most of it was positive.
