BRAD Scott grew up a Hawthorn supporter and played some senior games for that club. More significantly, he is a dual Brisbane premiership player.
But nearly nine years as coach of North Melbourne more than qualifies him as a rusted-on Kangaroos supporter and he understood the frustration of all Shinboners that followed Sunday’s 17-point loss to Essendon at Etihad Stadium.
BOMBERS HANG ON Full match coverage and stats
It was a weekend in which several of those in the same cluster as the Kangas on the ladder – Geelong, Melbourne and the Hawks – were all beaten and a win over the Bombers would have left them in sixth place.
Instead, the Roos are now ninth on the ladder and rueing a missed opportunity.
Coaches don't normally admit to ladder-watching, but Scott could empathise with the North faithful as they departed Docklands on Sunday evening.
"There’s opportunities and I can understand that," he said.
"There will be a sense with our players and coaches that this was a missed opportunity. But you play 22 games in the home and away season and you just have to accumulate as many wins as you can."
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The loss was a setback and by no means catastrophic. The likelihood is that that the Kangas will pick up four points and some handy percentage when hapless Gold Coast comes to town on Sunday. They might well be back in the eight in a week’s time.
But Scott isn’t so sure that making the finals is the be-all and end-all for the club in 2018.
"I have said for a number of years that having results go your way and (then) fall into the finals is good, but you want to be a team that when you play finals footy that you belong there and you play footy that's good enough to beat anyone," he said.
"That’s where our focus is."
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And that was when Scott slipped off the beanie and put the coach’s hat back on when he assessed the loss to the Bombers, saying the Kangaroos were beaten too often on the counter-attack after aggressively moving the ball forward.
"… Then we went back into our shells and bombed the ball forward a little bit. They were able to clean that up and play their way from there," he said.
While it was an exhilarating game to watch, he cautioned against dismissing it as the sort of free-flowing game that might come back into vogue if the AFL decides to tinker with zones and set-ups at stoppages as has been forecast.
"A number of times they worked through five layers of pressure," Scott said of the Bombers.
"It wasn't like we were sitting off and chasing them. We pressured them really well but not well enough and against sides like Essendon you have to be at your absolute best. We were just a little bit off there, but they were very good at capitalising their onball wins."
WATCH Brad Scott's full post-match media conference
The Kangas conceded 125 points on Sunday, which was their highest for the year.
"There are some elements of our game that are very solid but we let ourselves down defensively against a good offensive side, but you learn a lot more from those losses than big wins," Scott said.
"Our job now is to go to school now and make sure we’re better next week and again the week after and hopefully that qualifies us to play some good footy when it counts."
