“They were embarrassed all week in the media ... by all reports Brad Scott looked them in the eye and put those hard questions to a few of them and embarrassed them in the team meeting their effort and contest.
The dual All-Australian praised Essendon’s leaders for standing up in Sunday’s clash, but again queried why they’d been so down in recent weeks when the club had more to play for.
“Where has Mason Redman’s form been? He was terrific. (Sam) Draper beat (Sean) Darcy,” Montagna added.
“Jake Stringer laid a career-high 10 tackles. Why now? Why do it this week when you knew all the attention was on Essendon?
“Zach Merrett continued to do his thing, Darcy Parish was back to his best, Dylan Shiel et cetera.
“I thought it was sensational for them to get the win and full credit. But you have to ask yourself why can’t they have done this for the last eight weeks?
“They’d failed the test in all these other games and now they finally stand up when it almost felt like all hope was gone ... it’s just frustrating it took for this to happen to play with that ‘Essendon edge’ again.”
The Bombers now sit half a game outside the top eight ahead of defining clashes against Gold Coast (Marvel Stadium), Sydney (Marvel Stadium) and Brisbane (Gabba) to finish their home and away.
