BRAD Scott played for a team that was typically a hot favourite in the spring. Now he’s in charge of an outfit that is an underdog in the autumn.

But the attitude of Scott the coach seems to be a mirror image of Scott the unrelenting premiership player and, despite a 66-point belting at the hands of Collingwood, Scott vows that he and his team, no matter the circumstance, will never surrender.

“I’ll give credit to our guys, they fight,” Scott said after the game at the MCG on Saturday night.

“Say what you like about the game against St Kilda, they’ll fight. They’re a proud group of players. They are devastated in there.

“They will fight and fight and fight, but there are certain fundamentals of the game that we’ve really got to improve on and it’s not through lack of effort.

“Sometimes it may look that way but I assure you it is not lack of effort, it is just lack of know how and lack of work rate, which takes training to achieve.”
 
Scott said both teams went into the game with a similar structure, although Collingwood’s was much more experienced. But he was not using the Pies’ more seasoned bodies as an excuse.
 
“The thing that cost us more than anything was just lack of run through the midfield,” he said.

“We got exposed by some hard runners. I thought they had a number of players run through the midfield who just worked harder than we did, so defenders were trying to hold up the fort, but they were overwhelmed with numbers and our midfield could just not give them enough support.

“Like all good sides do, they created opportunity, but more than that they really punished us.

“They put a lot of pressure on us and we couldn’t withstand that pressure. And then they punished us on the scoreboard.”

It was also a punishing encounter for Scott’s team, with shoulder injuries to Hamish McIntosh and Liam Anthony.

“Hamish, I haven’t got a doctor’s report yet, but it looked like a bit of an AC joint which was fine. He had it re-strapped and came back on. He was able to complete the game,” Scott said.

“Liam Anthony’s shoulder looks a little more serious but we won’t know until the scan tomorrow morning. It looked to be dislocated but it went straight back in, so we won’t know the extent of the damage until the full scan.”