Talking to Gerard Healy, Mike Sheahan and Robert Walls on Fox Footy's On the Couch on Monday night, the Kangaroos' coach remains defiant and upbeat about his side's position on the ladder and its outlook in 2013.
"True champions persist through tough times and no-one who plays at the absolute elite level of sport sits on top for a really long period of time without experiencing some lows along the way. I certainly experienced that through my football career, most people have," Scott said.
"We're certainly not down in the dumps, we think we've played some really good footy, but clearly some lapses have hurt us and some really good quality opposition have made us pay for our mistakes.
"We knew it was going to be a tough start. We're playing the reigning premiers from the previous three years...the difference between Sydney, Collingwood and Geelong and where we sit right at the moment, is we couldn't put them away. Not at any stage could we put them away, they hung in even when we were dominating the game. On the weekend, we thought we had a hold of Sydney for a period of the game, but when they got a hold of us, we couldn't stem the flow."
Scott said while all sides make mistakes, the best teams in the competition are able to limit theirs to specific areas.
"With us, we're making mistakes across a broad range of areas. They're not simple to fix, it takes time, but they're very, very easy to identify. Players are very clear at our review what they were today."
Despite the Swans kicking eleven goals in the third quarter, Scott said his key defenders held up their end of the bargain.
"I thought (Scott) Thompson was outstanding, (he) kept Sam Reid goal-less. (Michael) Firrito kept (Adam) Goodes out of the game for just about all of it and (Nathan) Grima beat his direct opponent in (Mike) Pyke and (Shane) Mumford...clearly when (Jude) Bolton kicks four goals as a small forward, (Ben) McGlynn kicks three, (Jarrod) McVeigh bobs up with three and Luke Parker kicks two as well...(Daniel) Hanneberry kicked three, it wasn't our key defenders on the weekend it was certainly our smalls."
And he agreed with the suggestion captain Andrew Swallow needs more support in the middle of the ground.
"There's no doubt we need some support in that area, we do sit fourteenth both in games played the competition and fourteenth in age.
"Our expectations are extremely high...extremely high and I think the point is valid that Andrew Swallow is carrying a high load at the moment, Brent Harvey's not out there to support him, Drew Petrie's up one end of the ground so in one respect we hold Andrew Swallow in very, very high regard but we'd love to support him a bit better."
However Scott was quick to downplay suggestions the Roos are doing something wrong at halftime.
"We're not going to fall into any of that loser mentality that there are excuses...we're not doing things right at halftime, the warm up's not quite right. Those sorts of things don't effect whether a player mans up on an opponent at a stoppage, whether you let Ben McGlynn get to the fall of the ball before you get there," Scott argued.
"Those things are excuses that poor teams tend to make and I've been part of them, where you have bad third quarters and you start blaming the physio or you start blaming the warm-up's not good enough...that's rubbish. The reasons we had eleven goals kicked against us were very, very specific and the reason we're not the side we want to be right now is because we can't hang in there like Geelong, Sydney and Collingwood were able to hang in there against us."
After the match in Hobart, the fourth year coach shouldered the blame for the loss and was asked why by Healy.
You always look in the mirror first, there's no doubt about that," Scott reiterated.
"To lay the blame, when you're a leader, at the feet of others I think is very poor leadership and it's my responsibility with team performance, I hold the ultimate responsibility. Whenever we have a good win or a bad loss, the first place I alway look is in the mirror and I've got to assess what wen't wrong and if I did everything that was right, I've got to coach the players during the week better."
The Kangaroos take on Brisbane at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
