Essendon coach Matthew Knights has declared unwavering support for his players after they responded to a testing few weeks at Windy Hill with a thrilling three-point win over North Melbourne.
The Bombers returned to some remnants of form as they snapped an unwanted six-game losing streak to put the Kangaroos' finals aspirations on ice.
And Knights admitted it was the players that had turned things around after weeks of speculation and criticism, largely leveled at the coach.
"I said to the players after the game, I really thanked them for holding the club together in the last three weeks, they've kept rocking up to training and kept supporting the game plan, so I can't thank them enough," Knights said.
"The last three weeks have been a testing time...it's not been us and we haven't played with much dare or much spirit."
"The last three weeks have really hurt everyone and our supporters and so they should've been, but the way we've played tonight has gone a small way to gain a little bit of respect back."
Despite the magnifying glass falling heavily on his coaching exploits, Knights denied there was ever a time where he'd had doubts about where the club was heading.
"I think when you throw all your energy and resource in to starting something two and half years ago, you will never doubt yourself, particularly when the entire club is on board supporting. So never once did I have any doubt, but the most important thing is that I'm there for my players," he said.
"It's not about myself, people can keep putting up headlines and whacking me but so be it, I've got no control over that."
When asked about who he was referring to when he mentioned internal and external criticism, Knights gave little away.
"It (the last three weeks) gives us an understanding of who's going to stand with us and beside us and it also gave us an understanding of who sat on the other side of the line, who was happy to ping us and have a crack at us."
"So people have declared their hands in the three weeks which is something very refreshing because we find out who's with us and against us."
"Internally everyone's declared their hand about their in it for the long term and staying the course I think we've found out externally who's declared their hands."
Lastly, Knight praised the efforts of his young midfield and the leadership of a number of the Bombers' young bright stars.
"Our leaders played real guiding roles tonight. We've got six young players through the midfield: Bachar Houli, David Zaharakis, Kyle Reimers, Trent Colyer, Ben Howlett and Leroy Jetta all played through the midfield tonight, to add to Jobe Watson and Jason Winderlich, who are pretty young in their own right," he said.