While Essendon VFL suffered a one-point defeat to Southport on Saturday, Senior Coach Blake Caracella remains buoyed by the development of his young squad.

Both the Dons' VFL and AFL-listed contingent are beginning to gel in the reserves and the results are slowly bearing fruit, according to Caracella.

"We can see week-on-week we’re getting better with our performance, we’re more connected on the ground and starting to understand what our system is and what each player needs to do in different circumstances," Caracella said.

"It was frustrating to concede a few goals late, sometimes through errors of our own and some through misfortune."

Caracella reviews the individual performances of our AFL-listed Bombers from the weekend and highlights a handful of VFL players who are stringing together some solid form in the opening month of the campaign.

Dylan Shiel

24 disposals, eight clearances, four tackles

‘Shiely was really good around the ball, he won plenty of it inside and at clearances, which is an aspect we know he’s great at for us.

He’s obviously still building on his fitness base from pre-season and we’re keen to see how he goes in the weeks ahead as he keeps that going.

Sam Weideman

22 disposals, eight marks

‘Weids’ went down back this week, which is something he’d done a bit towards the end of last season.

We had a chat during the week and he told us it was something he’d like to do, so he went down there and played quite a strong game for us.

We are a young team and I think having his leadership down there really helped out a lot for them and shored us up defensively. We’re hoping he can build off this performance.

It’s good for him and the team that he has the option to play at both ends, whether we need a goal late or have him back to tidy up.

Lewis Hayes

26 disposals, nine marks

Hayesy was really good, he’s just getting better with each week he plays.

You can see his confidence growing to the point where he’s just finding heaps of the ball now, he's using it well, his defensive craft is getting better, and he was ably supported by a few of the VFL boys back there too.

Nick Bryan

33 hit-outs, 22 disposals, eight clearances, four marks

This was 'Bristle’s best game of the year so far.

He dominated the hit-outs at centre bounce and took some marks around the ground, which is an area we’ve been really focusing on with him.

He had more than just an impact around stoppage, so we were pleased with his efforts around the ground.

Nate Caddy

12 disposals, five marks, one goal

‘Cads’ started really well, especially given he had the tough gig of flying back after being a travelling emergency for the AFL squad.

The Southport boys were trying to rough him up throughout the game verbally and physically, and he did really well to withstand it and play a pretty good game.

He’s trying to be more rounded with what he does across the board, so there’s still plenty to come from him.

Luamon Lual

14 disposals, six marks

Pretty solid again.

As a first-year player, ‘Luey’ is still picking up on how we operate in certain defensive situations and learning that balance between attack and defence as a rebounding player. We’re happy with how he’s tracking.

Jayden Davey

Eight disposals, one goal

It was one of those ‘nearly’, frustrating kind of days for Jayden.

He had a few chances to impact in front of goal where he just missed or copped a bad bounce, but he’s developing each week.

With how much footy he’s missed, he’s getting his fitness levels up to standard and learning the attack.

Archie Roberts

21 disposals

Archie played more as an inside mid against the Dogs, but we moved him back to an outside role on the wing this week. He got up and down the ground quite well and accumulated the footy, which was good – he normally uses it pretty well and he’s showing an edge to his game in getting amongst the action. He was pretty serviceable on the day again.

Vigo Visentini

Nine disposals, five marks, three goals

Vigo took some really important marks for us and kicked goals in some high pressure situations, including one from outside 50 in the last quarter.

It’s a testament to him and the work he’s been putting in, last week he was really unlucky not to get his hands on the footy more given he was creating scores for us through his bodywork and running patterns, so it was his turn to get a lick of the ice cream this week.

He’ll grow in confidence off the back of what he’s done this week.

Tex Wanganeen

Seven disposals, one goal

Tex played three quarters this week and showed that he’s already improving off the first game back, looking cleaner around the ball and getting used to the pace.

He’s capable of doing special things on the ball, shown by that goal he kicked late, and the more he plays the more we’ll get to see of it.

VFL performances

All of the VFL-listed lads are tracking well, given how young the list is and how little experience a fair amount of them had at this level coming into the year.

So far we’ve played the four games and Jack Peris has been one of our most consistent, providing plenty of run, getting behind the play and putting heaps of pressure on.

Xavier (O'Neill) and 'Jacko' (Jackson Hately) are finding plenty of the footy as mainstays in the middle of the ground, but even some of the players who haven’t been around the AFL system as much like Tom Toma are showing really good signs.

Toma’s been quite solid as a mature-aged guy, hitting the scoreboard in the first couple of games and playing in a few different positions.

We’re really pleased with the development of Matthew Foley, I think he played just the two games last year but he’s appeared in every game already this season and played his best so far on the weekend.

He and the backs have spent a lot of time on spring boarding the attack and getting set the other way, and he’s been doing a great job of that.