Brad Scott knows his team’s effort and intent needs to lift if they want to maximise their capability at the business end of the season.

Last week’s disappointing 53-point defeat to St Kilda marked a third straight loss for the Dons, with Scott identifying a lack of focus and ‘hopeful football’ as key factors in the result during the review this week.

While Scott isn’t shying away from the Bombers’ missteps in recent weeks, he’s confident in the playing group’s ability to rediscover their form and embrace the immediate opportunity to respond against Fremantle on Sunday.

“While it was bitterly disappointing, it’s a failure of the pressure test. Fortunately, the pressure tests will keep coming,” Scott said.

“(The players feel the expectation) and they know it, whether they’ll consciously admit that or not. The only way for us to move forward is just to be upfront.

“We were tested, we failed, but how do you improve? You get tested again, you fail, you improve until you break through and we haven’t broken through. We’re not Olympians, we don’t get one pressure test every four years, we get to go again.”

“Our players want to win more than just about every group that I’ve seen and for a variety of reasons – everyone knows our club history – but we played hopeful football and we need to refocus on the really simple fundamentals.”

While external pressure around the race for the final spots in the top eight has been prominent for multiple sides in recent weeks, Scott isn’t looking to draw comparisons between the Dons and the rest of the competition.

The focus instead is on improving their style and getting back to the methods that had them in the running against the competition’s best sides earlier in the campaign.

“When we’ve played games that we could win, should win, need to win, we’ve failed that weight of expectation,” Scott said.

“How do you improve that, how do you fix that? You keep putting yourself in those pressure situations. We can just develop our game, sit in the bottom half of the ladder and say we’re building a list and style, or we can try and perform against the best and keep putting ourselves in those situations.

“Unless you’re playing a style that is good enough to compete against the best in the pressure moments when it really matters, whether you make finals or don’t make finals doesn’t matter.

“We want to be playing a style that can perform well, not just make it.”

The Bombers’ inaugural Community Game against the Dockers at the MCG this Sunday presents the next opportunity for the side to try and bounce back from their recent slump.

Following a thorough week of review, Scott’s looking for the Dons to bring a more direct, focused performance to the table against an in-form side at home.

“The fundamental of our game is effort and intent and it was poor on the weekend, but not through lack of care. It was through getting distracted from a situation and not playing each contest, each moment,” Scott said.

“We have shown over time that our best is reasonably capable, it’s just not consistent enough over time yet.

“Like a lot of teams have shown this year, you can feel like you’re a mile off it, then a month later you can feel like you’re right in it.”