“Demoralised”: Why Simpson would have used a different word

“Demoralised.”

It’s a fairly strong word to use in any scenario.

It’s even stronger when you’re talking about your football team just two games into a new season.

It’s the word Brad Scott used to described his Essendon side after the Bombers were cast aside by Port Adelaide to the tune of 63 points on Sunday.

Adam Simpson lived a similar situation during his final few years at West Coast so can understand.

Should Scott have used “demoralised” to describe his team?

“We love the honesty,” Simpson said on SEN's Whateley.

“But having lived what Brad is going through I just wouldn’t have used that word, I suppose.

“Because you’re trying to figure out a way to get everybody up and to declare the truth is maybe sometimes cleansing.

“There’s got to be some follow-up conversations had, with not just the players, but the whole club gets dragged down into the mire when you’re not winning.

“When West Coast won five or six games in three or four years it wasn’t just the players, it was the football department, it was the loyal staff and then up to marketing, memberships, sponsorship, coterie groups and all those people - you’re representing them as well.

“To declare that, as much as it’s honest and raw, it’s not something I would have done. I would have been, ‘Ok, how do I get the best out of this group?’. Sometimes that is with emotion.”

Simpson wonders if perhaps Scott could have used a different narrative, leaning on emotion and spirit rather than complete honesty.

“I’m not sure if that’s in Brad’s kit-bag, I’m sure it is (somewhere), but he seems pretty pragmatic doesn’t he. This is how it is and this is the truth,” Simpson continued.

“Where maybe a bit of Kenny (Hinkley) might need to come out before the game and play a bit of 'Eye of the Tiger', or us against them. No doubt every coach has that and Brad may have used it already.

“But there’s definitely some spirit required in these times.”

While as a former coach Simpson would have avoided that sort of talk, Gerard Whateley feels the description from Scott was apt, even if it was slightly uncommon for it to be uttered by the senior coach.

“Demoralised is the exact right word for Essendon,” said Whateley. “It was just unusual that it came from the coach.

“It felt more the domain of snap judgments and hot takes, but there was no sugar-coating what transpired yesterday.

“Essendon missed the seminar on early-season optimism. The one that teaches all the reasons a team will be better based on the work that’s been done across the summer and the natural development of players and game style.

“The natural excitement and buoyancy of the fresh adventure. The Bombers are devoid of any of that. They have come into a season at a low ebb and immediately regressed.”

Whateley wondered how Scott can lift his confidence-sapped charges out of the mire so early in a season that did promise, and still can, some hope for the future.

He also feels the Zach Merrett situation may have contributed to this.

“Demoralised was the best explanation,” he continued.

“The easy thing to say is Essendon has to be better than that. The harder proposition is how.

“'Seeing Red' was the theme of Round 1… I’d imagine the Bombers’ faithful is seeing red now.

“Perhaps the core of this is the most obvious explanation of all.

“Essendon’s one great player and leader pulled the eject cord last year because he no longer believed the plan was going to deliver success.

“He wanted to win and made the assessment winning wasn’t going to be at Essendon.

“That looks to have been a searingly accurate assessment. And perhaps it has also proven contagious.

“If the man leading the battalion foretold of impending doom that ripples through the troops, and leads us to yesterday, a team with hope and belief that can no longer see the plan or the cause.

“A demoralised team… and it’s only Round 2.”

The demoralised Dons will be intent on recovering from their hopeless beginning to 2026 when they meet North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.

The shining light for Scott’s Bombers is that they have not lost to the Roos since 2016, winning 12 in a row in that time.