Essendon coach Brad Scott has provided some insight into what culture means to him and the deficiencies he’s hoping to improve at Tullamarine.
The veteran coach was asked about developing culture in football clubs, particularly when looking at the issues that have plagued Melbourne over the last 12 months.
Scott admitted that there are star players that aren’t “cultural drivers” at the Bombers.
“Culture very simply, to me, is simply the people at an organisation at any given time,” Scott told the Don’t Shoot the Messenger podcast.
“Culture can be indoctrinated in an organisation and passed down, but it’s something you have to work at every single day.
“People say ‘we have a great culture’ and I say ‘at the moment you have’, because it can change in a heartbeat. As soon as you think you’ve got all the systems in place, one misstep can tear at the fabric of your culture.
“It’s something you’ve got to consistently work at and for the culture of Essendon as it relates to players, we talk a lot about the behaviours we except from our players and that’s on-field and off-field behaviour, but it’s also related to performance as well.
“You can have a player who is a really high performer, but is not a cultural driver of your football club and that’s the really challenging space for a coach because we’re a performance industry, we want to win.
“We’re dealing, like most clubs, with some really capable players who probably don’t exemplify what you want in terms of those behaviours.
“But again, that’s why I have a job. That’s why you have a coach because my job is to educate players as to the type of people we want them to be first and foremost and then the type of players we want to be.”
Essendon will take on Hawthorn in Round 1 to kick off their season at the MCG.
