IT WAS obviously a disappointing finish on Saturday. When the group comes in after a game like that, how does the coaching staff approach it?

Brad Scott: We just need to go over some things that we did poorly. It was a game that, really, we lost. Essendon was very brave and played very well but we really felt it was a game we lost and we just needed to address some things that cost us and we did that.

The players obviously feel pretty low at a time like that. Is there any point in getting into them and giving them a spray?
Not logically. But I think when certain directions aren’t followed the way that we would like them to be, then there are consequences for that and the players have got to know that. But you know players don’t go out there to miss goals, they don’t go out there to play poorly so it’s really important for us now that we’ve addressed it. We’ve done that and we move on and give a good account of ourselves against the Kangaroos.

In hindsight is there anything you guys would like to have done differently, sitting up there in the coaches’ box?
There’s always things that you think, ‘If I had my time again I’d do it differently’. Unfortunately, from the box, moves take a long time to happen. It would be nice if you could see something and change it instantly but the fact is it can take quite a few minutes to do that. We have defensive mechanisms in place that the players didn’t execute as well as we and they would have liked, but we’ve addressed that now and we move on.

Positives from the game. You’re in charge of the midfield group and a few of those guys, such as Dane Swan and Scott Pendlebury, were pretty good.
I thought they won the ball really well. There were periods when we were well on top. One disappointing aspect is that we didn’t really put Essendon away pretty early in the game. We really controlled the centre of the ground in the first quarter and I think Josh Fraser, for all his criticism, was right on top in the first quarter. I think we took the ball down [to the forward line] uncontested for goals a couple of times, so it was really encouraging that part of the game. The disappointing part was we just couldn’t finish them off.

Josh Fraser has copped a fair whack the last couple of days. What’s your take on that?
I’ve said to Josh, ‘You play high-level sport then you expect criticism at some stage’. Grant Thomas is a respected ex-coach who’s entitled to his opinion. You know it’s not one I happen to agree with, but the criticism that Josh has received he’s got to deal with and move on.
We thought Patrick Ryder did an outstanding job in breaking even with Josh. He tackled extremely well, he came in as a pinch-hitter and played some exceptional football but on every measure apart from tackling, he [only] broke even with Josh. So well done to Patrick. Unfortunately the standards Josh has set for himself over the last month, everyone expects him to be best on ground every week.

Does Josh need support in the ruck?
We do give him support with Leigh Brown. But Josh is more than capable of rucking a whole game by himself. Now whether that’s sustainable over the long term, we’ll have to address on a week-to-week basis but we think that’s how he plays his best football.

The Magpies are 2-3 now. Saturday was a blip on the radar but there’s no need to go hitting the panic button?
No, not at all. This is the great thing about, not only AFL football but top-level sport. We could so easily sit back and say ‘Gee, you know Adelaide got away, we should have won that. We had Geelong on the ropes, we let that slip and Essendon, we let that slip, so we could be 5-0’.
But we could just have easily slipped up against Brisbane and Melbourne, and we could be 0-5, so there’s a very fine line and often people don’t realise just how fine a line that is.

You play North Melbourne this week, and they proved to be a pretty tough competitor for you guys the last couple of seasons?
It’s always going to be tough to play against North Melbourne. We’ve got an enormous amount of respect for Dean Laidley as a coach. He’s very shrewd, tactically, and he always comes up with a very good game style against us, so we expect a tough battle. No matter how the sides are going on the ladder it’s always tough against North.