Consistency will be one of the key messages at the True Value Solar Centre this week as Essendon turns its attention to Carlton.

The Bombers are recovering from a thrilling two point win against premiership fancy Hawthorn.

“We’ve played the top two teams of last year and we’ve been very competitive in both.  The test is now to be competitive again against Carlton,” Essendon forward Paul Chapman said.

“We’ve put the acid on each other to play the same way every week.”

Hawthorn led by 16 points late in the game as the Bombers looked set for another honourable loss.

But this time Essendon wrested back the momentum.

“We didn’t panic, we just stuck to our guns and knew what it was that got us in front in the first place,” Chapman said.

“It was nice to get on the other end of it.  Last week we tried to protect the game a little bit, so at least we kept attacking the game.”

The three-time premiership player praised his teammates for learning from the mistakes they made against the Swans. 

“We’ve got a pretty young team.  We spoke about it a lot during the week and it shows how much it means to the guys and how much they hurt from the loss against Sydney.  We didn’t want to feel that same feeling again,” he said.

“It wasn’t a perfect game but we did enough to get over the line and we’ll take a lot from this as in the maturity and what it takes to beat the good teams.”