Riley, who coached Melbourne last year, said the Blues changed "a couple of things" to their game plan, which has since enabled the team to bounce into the top eight.
"We thought it was a real watershed day for our club – to kick 131 points and to get beaten by three goals was quite embarrassing actually. That's no disrespect to Essendon – they were very, very good," Riley said.
He said Carlton's recent wins had now created an interesting period for the club.
"We've always, for the last couple of weeks, come from behind the pack and won. We're in there and people are trying to knock us out of the eight. That's an interesting psychology for our young group – to see how we handle that," Riley said.
"We’ve improved a lot since we've played Essendon last time … these are just checkpoints to see where you're group has grown.
"Every time that we've failed in certain areas this year we've addressed it and got a little bit better in those areas and that's why we're probably six [wins] and six [losses] now, after starting the year naught [wins] and three [losses]."
Riley was also pleased with the continued development of Irishman Setanta O'hAilpin.
"Big 'Carlos' – he's just giving us a nice big body down there and we're winding him up like a top before the game, and he's coming out doing some mad Irish jigs and away he goes – he's doing some good jobs," Riley said.
"We're making it very, very simple for him, because he obviously hasn't come off that 10 to 15 years of game-sense, but we think his improvement has been really good."
Riley also said emerging defender Mark Austin, who has been an emergency for the past five matches, was likely to make that six this weekend, despite his fine form in the VFL.
"Probably not," Riley said when asked if Austin, who was named on extended bench, would play.
"Mark Austin has been in the best (in the VFL for the past) six weeks in a row.
"That says: 'Well, how come he's not getting a game?' That must mean the three or four tall defenders playing in the first 18 are doing well.
"They're growing some depth in their list and all good football teams have depth in their list and we're not quite there yet, but like most areas of our game, we're growing."
