‘Very hard to coach’: Dons injury crisis reaches new low as ‘serious issues’ stun Scott

'Quite frankly it's very hard to coach' | 11:27

Essendon coach Brad Scott said that news of star playmaker Nic Martin’s serious knee injury sent “a shiver down everyone’s spine” at quarter-time of the Bombers’ nine-point loss to Richmond at the MCG on Saturday night.

Just when it seemed like Essendon’s catastrophic injury crisis couldn’t get any worse, it did so significantly when Martin suffered a suspected ACL rupture in the first quarter.

Compounding things for the Bombers was the loss of important midfielder Will Setterfield, who appeared to sustain a significant foot injury.

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Almost half of Essendon’s best 22 is now sidelined as Martin and Setterfield now join Sam Draper (Achilles), Jye Caldwell (ankle), Kyle Langford (quad), Zach Reid (hamstring), Ben McKay (foot), Darcy Parish (calf), Nick Bryan (knee) and Harrison Jones (ankle) in the stands.

Scott admitted the mounting injury toll was starting to have an adverse effect on the team’s spirit.

“For us it’s trying to put on a brave face and be positive and upbeat, which is what you need to be as a leader, but it’s getting hard to deny that it’s not flattening, what’s happening at the moment,” Scott said.

“I can’t think of a situation like this in my time in footy.

“Teams can adapt and cover one or two but when you’re talking about half of the team you’ve just got to accept that the synergy’s not going to be there.

“It’s a tough situation but we’ve just got to find our way through it.

“The minute you start to think, ‘Poor me’, or, ‘Poor us’, or, ‘This is unfair’, you become a victim, and I think we’ve just got to face the situation we’re in and make the most of every situation.”

An injured Will Setterfield and Nic Martin following their Round 18 loss to Richmond at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 12, 2025 (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

Unfortunately for Martin, he looks set to become the club’s fifth long-term injury for the year following on from Draper, Bryan, Lewis Hayes (knee) and Tom Edwards (knee).

“With these 12-month injuries that are mounting up, it’s going to be a real challenge to keep everyone’s morale up but that’s the job of leaders,” Scott said.

The Bombers played their 12th debutant for the season on Saturday night in Oskar Smartt, and fielded nine players aged 20 or younger as well as six players with seven games or less experience.

“I think we’re asking a lot of guys who haven’t played AFL footy before,” he said.

“The synergy part is the hardest. You’re trying to put together a team that every single week have never played together.

“It just looks like a team that hasn’t played together and quite frankly it’s very hard to coach when you’re trying to bring them together and almost educate theoretically without being able to spend the time training it.

“The upside for us is that we’re getting exposure to guys that know the level and know the level they’ve got to get to.

“The most important thing for us is to fight our way through it and just deal with the circumstances that have been put in front of us at the moment and not try and dwell on what we haven’t got.”

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As for the game itself on Saturday night, it was an error-riddled slugfest which produced a total of just 10 goals in perfect conditions, and Scott agreed it was a tough watch.

“That’s not how AFL footy is supposed to look,” he said.

“It was clearly a terrible game, but the second quarter probably summed us up a little bit.

“If you can keep the ball in your front half for 80 per cent of the quarter and not kick a goal, there’s some serious issues there.”

The Bombers managed only four goals from 55 inside 50s.

“If you’re kicking the ball to two Coleman medallists, I guarantee it’s much easier to kick the ball to them than it is to kick the ball into our forward line at the moment,” he said.

“We can’t put the score together like good teams do at the moment.”

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