Former Essendon captain Tim Watson has outlined his frustrations with his old side and coach John Worsfold.
The Bombers were embarrassed by Geelong on Sunday afternoon, smashed by 66 points at the Gabba.
Essendon is now likely out of finals contention and Watson believes Worsfold’s inability to get his team to perform consistently and win contested possessions has been his “greatest failure” at the Bombers.
His side has been ranked 18th for winning contested football since the middle of 2019.
Worsfold believes Essendon simply needs to more time to adjust to their new game plan under soon-to-be head coach Ben Rutten.
“There is a gap between where we’re at and the top sides. Not many people said we were going to be a top four team this year,” Worsfold said post-match.
“So when we get our group together, we’re going to grow pretty quickly on that.
“There’s a gap that’s not going to take years to close, we’ll be able to close it once we get a bit more cohesion.
“This is a new style of footy that they’re learning and if they commit to it and work hard at it over the full pre-season again, the improvement will close the gap dramatically.”
Watson was sharp in his response to Worsfold’s press conference.
“Am I buying that? No, I’m not buying that. I’m not buying that on what I’ve seen over the last few years,” Watson told SEN Breakfast.
“For me, having watched Essendon closely and not withstanding the challenges John had when he first arrived there, they’re just not a competitive enough side.
“Like, the baseline for Sydney is something we all marvel at and week in, week out that’s what they achieve.
“Essendon don’t have an established baseline of contested football. You go back to John’s whole period of time there as a coach, they haven’t been able to establish that.
“What I’m most surprised about is Essendon’s lack of personality. I thought what you would get in essence when he became coach was, because we saw the way that he played, that there would be some aggression and an uncompromising unit.
“Yes, they would play attacking football, but Essendon would be hard to play against.
“They’ve been anything but hard to play against over that period of time.
“I think his greatest failure as a coach in his time at Essendon, and he’s a premiership coach so I’m not saying he can’t coach, but for me it’s being able to produce anything that recognises consistency.
“All your ball movement stuff is fine and everyone at some point in time in a game of footy when you’re playing against an opposition, the pressure doesn’t come at you and you can show all those beautiful parts of the game where you move the ball.
“Everyone gets their moment to do that, but for whatever reason in a period of time Essendon hasn’t been able to establish that and that is the baseline as far as I’m concerned when you play this game of football.
“You’ve got to be able to turn up and play and compete and have players that are capable of making the right decisions around the ball.
“If you watched that game against Geelong yesterday, Geelong instinctively come off their man at the right time to outnumber the opposition at the ball … that’s what you do as a team.
“I’m not seeing that in the way that Essendon play and I can’t believe this is so complicated, this game plan is so complicated that they can’t get the players to understand what the players are required to do when they go out there and play.”