Captain Dyson Heppell has continued the fierce post-mortem at Essendon after their stunning AFL loss to Brisbane, saying they played selfish football.
Heppell blamed Sunday's eight-point loss to the bottom side on mindset and attitude.
Despite Essendon now sitting two games outside the top eight, he remains upbeat about their finals hopes and is confident of a rebound in Saturday's massive game against arch-rivals Collingwood.
"From my point of view, individuals and as a team, we played quite a selfish game," Heppell said.
"For me, that's really out of character from this group, so a bit of a one-off game for us and as individuals.
"I'm not worried about that at all, but quite firm on the fact that we need to stamp some of those behaviours out."
Asked what he meant by selfish, Heppell said players took shots at goal when they could have passed off, or kicked the ball long instead of using their numbers around the ball.
Essendon led by 27 points early in the last quarter and looked as if they would win, despite being well below their best.
They also coughed up a late lead the week before against Sydney.
Regardless, the finals remain firmly on their radar.
"We have no issue in that our season is still alive," he said.
Heppell also said chief executive Xavier Campbell was well within his rights to blast the team in a post-game tweet, which was then put on the official club feed.
He said no-one was angrier about Sunday than the players.
"Yes, we did let them down - I have no issue with Xavier's tweet," Heppell said.
"That's the way it is and that's how we feel as well.
"Yep, we definitely let ourselves down, let our fans down and let the club down.
"But don't worry, my chin is well and truly up and I will be looking forward to dragging this team out and we're going to bounce back (on Saturday)."
Heppell felt they took some great lessons out of the Sydney loss, but clearly failed to implement them in the last quarter against the Lions.
"I probably see it more as a mindset and an attitude," he said.
"We've dropped two games now in a row, being a few goals up, and we really need to address that.
"I don't just see it as a last-quarter let-down, right throughout the day we didn't get the game on our terms."
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