Embattled Essendon coach Brad Scott explains post-match comments on young star Nate Caddy

Embattled Essendon coach Brad Scott has hit back at critics after a week of heavy scrutiny following his controversial comments about young gun Nate Caddy.

Scott singled out Caddy in the aftermath of his team’s heavy loss to Port Adelaide on Sunday, pointing to a deflating moment in the first half when the 20-year-old missed a sitter from point-blank range.

Scott made reference to the fluffed opportunity, calling it demoralising in his post-match, but was later criticised for throwing Caddy under the bus, given the young forward responded and was one of the team’s best performers (he booted four goals).

During the week Scott has copped a barage of criticism for targeting Caddy, when other senior Essendon players failed to stand up and do the team things during the 63-point loss to Port.

On Thursday, Scott was asked about his post-game comments, and about the the review of the humiliating match.

“I don’t need to take you inside our review,” Scott said, shutting down one inquiring journalist.

But he was certainly more expansive about his Caddy comments.

“Post game, particularly after a loss like that, you’ve got to think about who I’m talking to,” Scott said.

“And the majority of a post-game press conference I’m talking to the players, but I’ve already spoken to the players post-game, (but) I’m speaking to the players, first and foremost, and our fans after that.

“But in terms of Nate Caddy and selfishness, I spoke to Nate at half-time. I spoke to Nate post-game. I spoke to the players post-game, and then did a press conference.

“So they are crystal clear as to what I’m talking about.

“But for everyone else, and I’m not always going to do this, but for everyone else, if you make a mistake and you get demoralised by it, and more importantly, if the rest of the team get demoralised by it, you’re being selfish, because you’re thinking about yourself and not the team.

“So be disappointed, but get back into the contest.

“And that’s part of the area of growth for us.

“It’s really hard at the moment, but character is revealed through adversity, and when you can fight through those situations, you become more resilient over time.

“And so what Nate Caddy did in the second half, and we talked about this as a group, both at the game, post-game, and in review, you know the players voted for Cads as their player of the week, not because of his four goals in the second half, but because of his response to, what he said in his own words, an embarrassing moment.

“I was harder on the team in terms of their reaction to that miss in the second half. But Cads, he has grown before our eyes in one week.

“Where he is right now compared to where he was six months ago is chalk and cheese.

“And so that that is that’s the reason why players like Caddy, I could reel off a whole lot of others, why I’m so often thinking about this group because they made of the right stuff.

“And if things are easy and you just roll along, you’re playing in a top-four side, and you’re a young player, and you think this game is easy, you’re delusional and you’re getting a false understanding of how hard this game is.

“Our players now know how hard this game is, and they’re building character and resilience because of it.

“It’s not fun, but we knew there was a risk in the short term. We understood that, but the last two weeks haven’t been anywhere near our capability, let alone our potential.”

Scott said the team would continue to work on the things that they had worked on in the pre-season but hadn’t been executing.

“So there’s nothing new in terms of what we’re we’re working on,” he said.

“We’ve just got to double down on the execution.

“And I’m very optimistic we will look very different to what we produced in the first two weeks. But we’ve just got to understand what we’re doing. We’ve got a very clear strategy.”

He said he felt for Essendon fans who had endured an “unbelievably difficult” past 25 years.

“So all I can assure everyone is that I’m extremely optimistic about what we’re doing,” he said.

“We’ve made really hard short-term decisions for the medium to long-term. Let’s see it through.”

He stressed that the club had turned over its list “by 39 players in three years”.

“So it’s going to look a bit disjointed,” he admitted, adding later that some confusion during a game was to be expected.

“Look, that’s where, and I said last week, I’m a bit sadistic like this, but this is what I love doing.

“I love developing, I love teaching. Is it frustrating in the short term? Yes, it is. But it’s also unfair on our entire group to expect them to nail everything.

“So while it’s frustrating, demoralising, it’s really hard for our fans, there’s a lot of noise and and pressure on the club, which you can’t spend any time thinking about ... you’ve got to think about what we do about it.”

Essendon have not won a final since 2004 and the last time Scott tasted victory with the team was more than 300 days ago in May last year (against Richmond).

Scott, a former coach of North Melbourne, was asked how he was coping under the pressure and all the media noise.

“Fine,” he said.

“I’ve been here before, and I know the way out. But it’s not about me.

“I’m trying to preach a culture of investing in the team at all costs. Don’t be selfish. That’s not about me. What will be, will be. I mean, when you coach, when you’re a head coach, it ends at some point. It’s just a matter of how and when.

“We’re going to die at some point too. You don’t spend your whole time thinking about it.”