There was a fragility to the Bombers that would worry Scott and their legions of supporters craving their finals drought to end. It did not take much for them to lose their way.

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There was no coming back after a morale-sapping three-minute period in the third quarter, which Brad Scott described as a “series of unfortunate events”. Stronger sides, though, find a way.

Instead of Sam Draper being awarded a free kick for front-on contact and/or a chop of the arms, the ball was rushed down the other end for Gary Rohan to mark and goal.

Then from the centre bounce, Jye Menzie was penalised for deliberately rushing a behind after Ollie Dempsey cleverly sagged off to avoid laying pressure.

Technically, the free was there as Menzie was “not under immediate physical pressure”, as the Laws of the Game state, and had time and space to dispose of the ball. Frustratingly for Bombers fans, this rule is not often applied, while the non-free kick to Draper generally is. Draper would have been kicking to put the Dons three points up. Instead, they went 15 points behind.

The flow of the game had already changed. Alarmingly for the Bombers, at one stage in the third term, the Cats were +29 for possessions and +10 for tackles, +7 for contested ball and up 23-4 for marks.

Scott did not mince his words with a damning assessment of his players’ inability to arrest the slide.

“What I’m most disappointed about is that we lost momentum and then we lost our composure,” Scott said.

“We couldn’t regain the momentum. We couldn’t stabilise the game.

“Things go against you in games of footy all the time … as frustrating as it is there’s nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is control your response to it. And our response tonight was really disappointing.

“Now that’s a step back in that area for us, which has been really good so far this year. So our ability to regain composure after losing momentum in the third quarter compounded it and made it worse.”

Clubs rely on their on-field leaders to identify the shift in the game and stop the bleeding. Scott did not name names, sheeting the blame to the team rather than his senior stars, but skipper Zach Merrett, whose leadership has been feted this year, and vice-captain Andy McGrath were both much quieter after half-time.

“Whatever happens, whether it’s good, whether it’s bad, you’ve got to keep level and keep competing,” Scott said.

“I thought we set the game up really well in the first half, I thought we had ample opportunity to be a lot further in front than we were at half-time. And then in a short period of time in the third quarter we lost momentum and, to a certain extent, dropped our bundle.”

The call to play both Draper and Todd Goldstein in the wet raised eyebrows. They won the clearance count by eight, but scores from stoppage were dead even. Scott said playing two rucks did not hurt his side. It could be argued it did not help them either, as Sam De Koning and Mark Blicavs were far more effective around the ground.

Again of concern was their inefficiency inside their forward 50. For the third time in as many games against a finals contender, they had more entries and lost. As they did against Carlton, they managed only nine goals from 60 entries. It remains an “RFI” (room for improvement), Redman said.

It was at this stage of last season the Bombers lost their way. History is threatening to repeat.