Senior Coach Brad Scott spoke to the media following Essendon’s 48-point loss to GWS at Marvel Stadium last night, expressing his frustration with the team's inability to convert opportunities but praised the teams willingness to compete against a quality opposition.

Despite having three more inside 50s, the Bombers failed to convert their chances, scoring 4.10 (34) from set shots compared to 10.5 (65) for the GIANTS. But a “no-excuse” attitude will continue to drive the Bombers who now have an eight-day break heading into a blockbuster match against the Western Bulldogs on Friday night at Marvel Stadium.

13:09

On effort under adversity...

“We don’t really want to dwell on the challenges or the negatives. We actually want to rise to the challenge.

“We want to be a no-excuse football club.

“We’d like to have better availability, but we field 23 fit players every week and we give opportunity to guys who deserve it.

“What we can always demand is effort and intent, and the way we competed tonight, for the most part, was very good against a very good opposition.”

On forward-half connection...

“The hardest thing in footy is to generate the shots, and we did that tonight.

“We had 57 inside 50s against a really good opposition. We kept the ball in our forward half pretty well, but we lacked execution.

“It wasn’t bad luck. We just missed.

“It’s something we’ll keep working on.”

On Liam McMahon’s debut...

“Liam’s got a lot of really good attributes. Kicking is certainly one of them.

“He’s a beautiful kick, an accurate kick, a penetrating kick.

“I’m not sure there’s ever been a player who’s led the goalkicking in the VFL for two separate clubs in the same season. You’ve got to be doing something right.”

00:38

On players taking their chance...

“Every player wants an opportunity, and sometimes it comes when you least expect it.

“You can’t control when that moment comes, but you can control how ready you are.

“Dylan Shiel’s been working extremely hard in the VFL and has been overlooked for others. That’s particularly tough for someone of his calibre.

“His opportunity came and I thought he competed well.”

On the GWS threat...

“They pose such a significant threat all over the ground.

“You can either try to stop their back-half movement or turn it into an opportunity, and that was a big focus for us.

“Like the class side they are, they were able to bounce a few times and transition the ball, but we were able to limit that reasonably well.”

On Tom Green’s dominance...

“We double-teamed him. Then we triple-teamed him. That wasn’t quite working either.

“He was exceptional and really the difference between the two teams in the first half.

“It was a real challenge to respond, but I thought we competed better as the game went on.”

On midfield adjustments...

“We haven’t thrown Andy McGrath in the midfield much this year, but Durham went off with an HIA and we had to shift the mix.

“McGrath went in, Gresham went in, and we flicked Perkins forward.

“We saw some options that maybe we didn’t have a week ago.”

On what comes next...

“We’re trying to build connection with a young forward group over a few weeks. That’s something that normally takes a couple of pre-seasons.

“This week we get the chance to work on it more.

“No excuses. We’ll keep working.”