Essendon captain Dyson Heppell says a lack of core football fundamentals was to blame for his side’s 16-point loss to Fremantle on Saturday.

While the Bombers made a late surge with the final three goals at Optus Stadium, Fremantle proved too strong throughout the contest.

“If you strip it right back and just look at the basics of footy – being clean around the ball, spreading from contests, sticking tackles etcetera – I think that’s probably where we let ourselves down a bit,” Heppell said post-match.

“(If) you’re clean with the ball, you use your numbers and you move the ball forward smartly (then) the rest of it takes care of itself.”

Heppell said the Dockers “set the tone early” and admitted the Bombers couldn’t match their opponents on the outside in front of what was a hostile crowd for the home side’s first match at Optus Stadium.

“They outworked us on their spread from stoppages, I feel they outmanoeuvred us in terms of them being able to get their spare back for most of the night,” he said.

“I thought our contest work on the inner circle was quite good, but in terms of that spread and that real intensity getting out and outnumbering at the next contest, that’s where they got right on top.”

49,021 fans attended the historic game and Heppell said the side was forced to create its own energy and struggled to gain momentum throughout the game.

“(There were) a couple of great efforts from a few of the boys that we rewarded quite well and tried to get motivated from that, but we couldn’t really get a run on.”

The skipper said he was confident the team could address its inefficiencies from the match ahead of next week’s clash with the Western Bulldogs.

“It’s really early in the season; we’re (at) round two. We’ve showed our best footy can be elite, but we just need to find that consistency of our best footy.

“I’m excited for next week already, we’ll move on from this quickly and get back to Melbourne and get into it.”