Essendon confirms sacking of Brad Scott

Essendon coach Brad Scott has been sacked by the club following a dismal start to the 2026 season.

After an extremely poor loss to an undermanned and underperforming Richmond side in Round 11, the club has opted to move on from their head coach during his fourth season in charge.

Channel 7's Mitch Cleary broke the news on Tuesday morning.

SEN’s Sam Edmund added some further information.

“Brad Scott has just been sacked as the coach of the Essendon Football Club,” Edmund said on SEN Breakfast.

“One win since May 23 last year. He took over ahead of the 2023 season.

“He’s been told last night that his tenure as coach of Essendon has finished.

“There was an unscheduled board meeting and I’m told that was an offsite board meeting, and it was in that board meeting that they decided that Brad Scott’s time as coach of Essendon would cease.

“They will appoint an interim coach for the remainder of the season.

“The prevailing view on this is that the losses had just mounted the team has not really improved in any meaningful way. They’ve been uncompetitive in large chunks of those losses.

“They’re last on the ladder and that is unsustainable in the view of many who are entrusted with these decisions.

“It is what it looks like. The board meeting was held, the decision was made, the timing of it is curious.

“There will be an explanation on this. I’ve got some level of empathy with how it’s come into the public domain.

“But we’ll wait for further clarity.”

SEN’s Tom Morris suggests that Dean Solomon will be named as interim coach of the Dons.

Essendon confirms Scott exit

The Bombers released a statement confirming the departure of Scott.

Read it below:

The Essendon Football Club can confirm that it has made the decision to part company with Senior Coach Brad Scott, effective immediately.

The Club thanked Scott and his family for his dedication to the role and for the club-first mentality he showed throughout his time at Essendon.

“Brad is a resilient, stoic leader who gave everything to this football club and to the people in it. He came to Essendon with a clear set of values and he never compromised them, through good times and difficult ones,” President Andrew Welsh said.

“We appreciate the sacrifices he made for our Club and thank him for his commitment and professionalism. Brad leaves a legacy with the decisions he made in building our list which were always Club first.

“Ultimately, whilst we know we are a young team, we are not comfortable with our current position which led us to meet as a Board to assess and make a decision on the future of the Senior Coach position.

“When looking at the overall progress of our football team this season, it was agreed that we needed a fresh voice to take the club forward for the 2027 AFL Season. Once that decision was made, it would have been unfair to have Brad continue as coach any longer and that is why we have brought this decision forward to today.

“While long-term decisions have been clear and provide great hope for our future, we still need to show progress week to week, and we haven't seen that this year. These are genuinely difficult decisions, and we do not take them lightly but the cumulative nature of our losses and the key performance indicators set by the Club at the start of the season are not trending in the right direction,” Welsh said.

“In recent years we have transitioned our playing list, overhauled our high-performance department and enhanced our list and recruiting division and today we made the difficult decision to change our senior coaching structure.

“We have been extremely clear on the strategy and direction of our football club. We are building the next successful era for Essendon, with a view to playing finals, winning finals and competing for premierships.

“There is a lot to be gained from the second half of the season and we won’t waste the opportunity to develop and improve our performances.

“We know recent times have been hard for Essendon people, and we feel that deeply. We are confident the best days for this football club are ahead of us and we are excited about the future.”

The Club will outline the process to select its next Senior Coach in the coming days.

Poor Scott stats

Sitting dead last with just one win this season, Scott departs as the Bombers' worst statistical coach since the 1930s, winning just 29 of his 80 games at the club and guiding the side to just one top eight finish since joining in 2023.

Speaking on the desperate nature of Scott's final weeks at the Bombers, SEN's Tom Morris reported last week that the 50-year-old would be coaching for his job despite signing an extension until the end of the 2027 season.

“It's a big few weeks for Brad Scott, I think bigger than what many people realise across the industry,” Morris said last week.

“He's contracted to the end of next year. But make no mistake, if Essendon sacked him, they can afford to pay him out with the soft cap the way it is.

“That's not a consideration for them, it's just whether Brad Scott's the right man to take them forward.

“We reported during the week on Agenda Setters that, aside from wins and losses, there is another two metrics that Essendon are keeping very close track of.

“One, is player development. So that is how many players have improved and by how much under Brad Scott. That's across training and across games.

“And the second metric is, largely, team defence. So specifically, pressure acts, scores against those sorts of numbers.

“And on those numbers, it looks pretty bleak for Brad Scott.

“I'm not going to say that Brad Scott, it's a matter of when, not if, like what we were saying about Michael Voss.

“But I think he's in a very delicate, very perilous position, more than maybe what we even thought a few weeks ago.”

The Bombers now join Carlton in the hunt for a new senior coach.