Friday night's Dreamtime at the G clash couldn't have gone much worse for Brad Scott and his Essendon side.
The Bombers were downed by then-bottom of the ladder Richmond to the tune of 18 points, while five Essendon players face extended stints on the sidelines with a variety of injuries.
Essendon captain Andrew McGrath left the ground and went to hospital with a suspected broken jaw, key forward Archer May also went to hospital with suspected broken ribs, Matt Guelfi injured his hamstring, Sam Durham got concussed and Jye Caldwell sustained an ankle/syndesmosis injury in the first quarter but had to play out the game to prevent his side from being a player down on the field.
Scott's position as coach was already under-fire given the Bombers' lack-lustre 1-10 start to the season, but last night's 23rd loss in his past 24 games has him under increased scrutiny.
"It's hard to seperate (Friday night's) performance from the circumstance, but in terms of the game we were just on the hop right from the start given we had to shuffle the deck chairs a fair bit," Scott said in the post-game press conference.
"It's obviously extremely disappointing not to get it done but there are always things that you think, 'Okay that's positives', but it's hard to talk about positives at the moment for us.
"We are in a situation that we don't want to be in and we have to keep fighting, but I thought overall, and I know no one cares, but given the circumstances the players fought till the end and gave themselves a chance to win and fell just short."
The Bombers had a wretched run with injury last season and seemed to be moving into clearer air with their list in 2026, but with five extra players going down against the Tigers, that makes it possibly 19 unavailable for Scott for next weekend's must-win clash against West Coast.
"We couldn't take (Caldwell) off because we would have been playing with 17," he said. "We had none on the bench and had to push him forward. Again the doctors, I wanted to make sure he was at no risk, but he is in a fair bit of pain. Archer's May's off to hospital with ribs.
"It's a bit like last week with Peter Wright hurts his PCL in the second ruck contest of the game and just tries to hobble through.
"We are not shying away from the challenges we have in front of us, but it's hard to tonight not feel a sense of deja vu of the last 18 months of just getting guys on the park to build something to show improvement then you are throwing guys from halfback to half forward to the goal square to on ball trying to patch it together."
Essendon sit in 18th spot on the ladder, the last remaining team with only one victory.
