Essendon VFL suffered a 61-point defeat to Richmond in their Dreamtime curtain raiser on Saturday.

Despite a promising showing in the first half, the Bombers were overrun by an impressive second half from the Tigers, who kicked seven goals in the final term.

VFL Senior Coach Blake Caracella felt the day was a frustrating misstep given the team's solid string of performances leading into the game, including a narrow loss to second-placed Williamstown and a big win over North Melbourne at Windy Hill a week prior.

"It was an interesting game to review. We were really competitive until early in the third term, but their system got on top," Caracella said.

"Once they won contests, they were able to get us out the back too easily and create space in the forward line. They moved the ball a lot more dangerously than we did, which made a big difference as the game wore on.

"We need to get back to sustaining our best brand our football over a longer period of time, which has clearly been a challenge for us so far this season. We’ve made some really good inroads over the last six weeks, it was a shame to see that fall away on the weekend."

Caracella reviews the individual performances of the 10 AFL-listed Bombers who saw action on Saturday.

Dylan Shiel was named to play, but was a late withdrawal due to illness.

Sam Weideman

Eight disposals, four marks

‘Weids’ continues to play good footy for us down back.

He was involved in some really heavy contests and showed a heap of courage to go back with the flight and stand up for some brave grabs – he performed really well given the pressure our backs were under.

Lewis Hayes

11 disposals, four marks, three tackles

‘Hayesy’s still learning how to adapt and play on different types of forwards.

He’s had a really good four or five weeks on that front, Richmond’s forward line provided issues for us on the day and he stood up well a few times.

Zach Reid

10 disposals, four marks

Probably not as influential this week, but he’s been really good generally since coming back.

Once Richmond got their run on after half-time, him and ‘Hayesy’ weren’t able to cut across and intercept as much as they would’ve liked.

Luamon Lual

13 disposals, four marks

‘Luey’s going reasonably well for a first year player.

He’s been solid in defence and has been working really hard at winning the footy back for us, we’re just hoping we can see more of his dash going the other way and kicking off the attack.

Jayden Davey

Nine disposals, three marks

Jayden was quite often outnumbered when we went inside 50, which made it difficult for individual forwards to have an impact for us.

He still worked really hard to get to good spots, but unfortunately after half-time those opportunities just weren’t there for him.

Archie Roberts

18 disposals, four marks

‘Robbo’s found a really nice balance of inside and outside work in recent weeks and is playing some good footy.

He’s really vocal out on the ground and you can see how invested he is in the program, always giving a really good contest for us on the wing.

Nick Bryan

46 hit-outs, 23 disposals, 10 clearances, four marks, one goal

‘Bristle’ was pretty dominant in the ruck, similar to last week.

Again, the contest work’s been the key focus for us with him and he’s been really good in that area for a few weeks now, hopefully he can keep building from this.

Vigo Visentini

21 hit-outs, 11 disposals, four marks

We gave ‘Vigs’ a bit more time in the ruck this week, as evidenced by his hit-out count.

He looked pretty good in the air around the ground especially early, taking some good intercepts in the defensive half. We’re keen for him to share more of those ruck duties as the year goes on.

Tex Wanganeen

Seven disposals, two marks, one goal

It was a hard day as a small forward with how Richmond set up after the break.

He’s obviously got some real talent and you can see that whenever he has ball in hand, usually looking creative and giving us good looks – we just want to get it in his hands more often.

Jye Menzie

Nine disposals, three marks, two goals

‘Menz’ was really good for us in a half (rested as a carry-over AFL emergency at half-time).

He split his time between the wing and the forward half again and hit the scoreboard with a couple of nice goals, showing some real class at that level.

Essendon's next VFL encounter comes against Box Hill at Windy Hill on Sunday, beginning at 1:05pm AEST.

Caracella expects a good contest.

"We played Box Hill in the pre-season and we know they’re a good football team. Windy Hill’s a smaller ground and they’re usually a good contested ball team, so we’ll have to bring that to the table," Caracella said.