Essendon coach Brad Scott has delivered a stinging post-mortem from the Bombers' capitulation to St Kilda, declaring his team keeps failing in pressure situations.
After being on the verge of solidifying a top-four spot three weeks ago, Essendon find themselves sitting 10th ahead of a must-win AFL clash with red-hot Fremantle at the MCG on Sunday.
Essendon were 8-1-3 and destined to play finals for the first time since 2021, but they have since won just two of their last eight games.
The 53-point smashing against the 14th-placed Saints was the nadir of Essendon's season, with Scott post-game calling their effort "third-rate".
He didn't hold back in his assessment of the performance five days later, either.
"We are not trying to escape reality that when the pressure test has come this year ... it's at the pointy end of the season when you put yourself in contention to compete, and to qualify, when that pressure's come, we've failed the test," Scott said on Thursday.
"When we've played games that we should, we could win, need to win, we've failed that weight of expectation.
"The game on the weekend looked to me like we had players probably, as a club even, we went in with an attitude of 'Gee, I hope we win this'. Or even worse, 'I hope we don't lose this'."
Scott insists Essendon had no other choice but to keep putting themselves in pressure situations.
"We could just develop our game and and sit in the bottom half of the ladder and say we're building, or we can try and perform and compete against the best," he said.
"Until we are a team that can handle those situations, whether people want to talk about finals, it becomes an irrelevance.
"Unless you're playing a style that is good enough to compete against the best, in the pressure moments when it really matters.
"I thought there was a lack of effort and intent, and in review, I still thought that.
"But don't confuse that with a lack of care - our players, they want to win more than just about any group that I've seen."
Jordan Ridley (hip) will miss up to three weeks, continuing an injury-plagued 12 months for the star defender.
