There were good and bad signs from our game against Melbourne.

It started well and our midfield worked really hard early in the game and gave our forwards lots of opportunities.

Running through the midfield we certainly got free on occasions but the problem was we just didn’t quite finish off the way we would have liked.

Our ball use hurt us a few times where we should have got some easier goals  - we mucked it up a few times by not turning our heads and finding players who were free.

Instead we kicked it to a contest. You like to back your forwards in one-on-one, but if there’s a free player available you want to find them, so we need to have a bit more composure.

There were other good signs at the stoppages in the mdfield and we were really pleased with the ball ups and the boundary throw ins.

We won the clearances well from there. We kicked 3.5 from ball ups and throw ins, while  Melbourne only kicked two points so that was a really good result.

Things weren’t as positive at the centre bounce clearances, which we ended up losing 10 to 15. It was even at three quarter time and then in the last quarter they kicked two goals from centre bounces and it really hurt us.

We won the hitout a couple of times but just didn’t get to where we needed to be so we need to do some work on making sure that when we win the ruck contest we take advantage of it.

It’s an area we want to fix up because we know Essendon have a lot of hard bodies in close in the midfield and they are going to be really hard to match up.

Our midfield is obviously different this year without Brett Kirk, and we still need to get better at our communication and organisation. There were a couple of times there  where our set ups weren’t right. Josh Kennedy has really stood up with his leadership in the middle but it’s an area where we can improve.

Melbourne midfielder Brent Moloney was damaging with 22 contested possessions and he was really switched on.

Looking at the stats you would have thought we would have lost by a lot because Melbourne had 35 more contested possessions than us. We also had a lot of ineffective tackles, which is unlike the Swans, so we’ll work on our tackling technique this week.

We’ve addressed all this with the players in our post-game review and now they have to bring that effort and hardness to want to tackle and tackle properly. It is a real mental thing, tackling.

Essendon pose a significant challenge this week. They have really changed their game plan from last year and have a much more defensive mindset in the way they go about their footy.

They are still very good with their swift ball movement and are a very quick, skilful team. The big thing for me is that they are now putting their tough, hard players in the midfield. Mark McVeigh has gone back in there and their captain Jobe Watson is in there and Heath Hocking had a really good game last week.

They are a tough side and their two ruckmen, David Hille and Paddy Ryder, are very good quality players. They both played 90 per cent of the game last week, and swap into the forward line and backline so our ruckmen have a big job on their hands.

So the Bombers have that right mix - on the inside of the contests they are physical and strong and on the outside of contests they are very quick with skilful, pacy players.

We’re going to have to make it an inside game and fight hard in close - if we don’t win our contested possessions this week, it won’t be a draw!