Essendon coach Brad Scott indicated that the club's Round 3 loss to North Melbourne was a step forward, but lamented their poor execution.
The Bombers lost by 12 points and were beaten around the contest, but generated more inside 50s and had more scoring shots, ultimately hurt by a lack of efficiency.
“(The first two weeks were a ) low base,” Scott said at his post-game press conference.
“Definitely better in the areas we worked on in a short break. Based on what we worked on during the week, I had a good feeling the game would look different to the way it has the previous two weeks.
“While very disappointed, we did some things well to give us good opportunities – 30-odd inside 50s in the first half gave us opportunity after opportunity. We defended pretty well, still that's a work in progress, but the difference in the game tonight was our inability to execute with ball in hand.
“We coughed the ball up and missed opportunities on a regular basis…even though we defended rebound really well for at least the first half and parts after that, we turned the ball over so badly in such bad spots that the few times they did get through us, they scored.”
With Saturday's loss the Bombers' 16th in a row, pressure is mounting from a restless fan-base for a breakthrough win.
Scott conceded that the club was going through a difficult time, but was steadfast in his belief that the building blocks were in place for Essendon to compete in the medium-long term.
“Essendon has been around for 150 years through some really difficult times, we're going through a difficult time at the moment, but we'll be fine. We've got a strategy, it's really clear, we know what we're doing,” Scott said.
“Medium to long term is something we're really excited about and the decisions we made to look to the medium to long term, we accepted there was short term vulnerability and pain but we're willing to endure that.
“Look at the way we've built our list over the last three years, look at the decisions we've made to prioritise youth over experience.
“It would make my life a lot easier to bring in a lot more experienced players in, but I'm not in it for the easy, I'm in it to build a platform for this club which has been starved of success for a long time and we want to turn it around quickly but the decisions we're making are to build that platform not look for the quick fix which is very tempting when you feel some pressure.”
Among the positives for the Bombers on Saturday were debutant Jacob Farrow, who Scott said “looked like an AFL player” and top-10 pick Sullivan Robey, who had 23 disposals and four goals in the VFL to push his case for an AFL berth after an interrupted pre-season.
But there was ultimately too few contributors, which was exacerbated by Zach Merrett being held by Finn O'Sullivan, who finished with 24 disposals in a standout two-way performance.
North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson praised the second year player's role in the victory.
“We're rapt with his role. We rate Zach Merrett very highly, he's been an accomplished player for a long period of time” Clarkson said.
“He's used to playing on a guy and nullifying his influence and he's got every trick in the book to try and break a close checking opponent so Finn did an outstanding job to limit his influence.
“He kicked a goal late but Finn came to me and said ‘I wasn't on him then, it was Luke McDonald!' They'll be buying each other a coffee during the week I'm sure.”
