With their finals hopes all but dashed, yet again, in heartbreaking fashion Essendon will attempt to salvage something from a bitter close to the AFL season.
The Bombers' season was effectively ended with a one-point loss to Gold Coast - conceded via an after-the-siren goal to Sun Mac Andrew - at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.
After their first 11 games, Essendon had an 8-1-2 record and appeared on track to even charge into the top four, let alone finals.
The Bombers have gone 3-7 since that point - including losing to Adelaide, St Kilda and the Suns (twice), and now sit ninth, two points outside the finals places ahead of Sunday's games.
Essendon have to pull off upsets against Sydney (home) and Brisbane (away) and have other results go their way in order to make finals.
"The first two thirds of the year, we put ourselves in a really good spot, and destiny was in our own hands," defender Mason Redman said.
"But unfortunately now, even if we win the last two - which obviously we're going to go out there to try to achieve - it's out of our hands as well, because results need to go our way."
Coach Brad Scott and Redman both believed Essendon had largely played out the end of the game to plan - bar their failure to put the Suns away.
"We kicked 1.9 in the last quarter, so we've really only got ourselves to blame," Redman said.
Saturday night's loss has also likely put paid to hopes of ending a now 20-year run without winning a final.
"I think it's pretty obvious how everyone's feeling," Scott said.
"For all of our supporters and the club, it's just extremely frustrating. And you can come up with all sorts of words to describe it, but you're obviously disappointed, but that doesn't help anything."
Last season, Essendon missed the finals then collapsed to thumping losses to Collingwood and GWS in the final two rounds.
Scott insisted those games were "ancient history" and said the Bombers needed to move on "really quickly" ahead of Friday's clash with the ladder-leading Swans.
'We're gonna go out there and give it a red-hot crack," Redman said.
Essendon will also attempt to take away the hard lessons of Saturday's traumatic loss.
"It's cold comfort, but I'm a big believer in that you've got to keep putting yourself in the position," Scott said.
"The easiest part is we just start the season 0-6 and then just storm home, and everyone's happy. You win the same number of games.
"But we'd rather put ourselves in the frame and push and push and push and put ourselves in that position and as hard as it is now, you can draw on that in the future. It's like any improvement.
"Whatever you're trying to improve in life, personally, collectively, you need to stress yourself, and then you get a response from it.
"We've certainly stressed ourselves and stressed our supporters. Now it's how we get the response."
