Essendon VFL showed plenty of fight in their 22-point away defeat to Casey on Sunday.

With the home outfit fielding a side of predominantly AFL-listed players, the Bombers responded to an early disadvantage against the breeze to stay in the hunt for most of the contest, pushing to within five points of the Demons halfway through the final term.

For VFL Senior Coach Blake Caracella, the effort reflected the group's improvement over the past month, but also highlighted further areas for growth.

"We came up against a side with six or seven of their best players back (17 AFL-listed players all up) who’ve been a super consistent VFL side for over 10 years," Caracella said.

"Our effort was really good and up until around the 15-minute mark of the first term, we’d negated the wind advantage quite well, but unfortunately conceded a few in a row late in the quarter which made a difference.

"We managed to fight our way back and had a bit of a run going in the last, so while it was disappointing not to finish off our work, we’ve been really pleased with our fight and generally how the group’s been developing over the year.

"We’ve got four games to go and we’re just as keen to see how much better we can get by season’s end."

Caracella runs essendonfc.com.au through the performances of the AFL-listed Bombers from the defeat, featuring a stellar effort from midfielder Ben Hobbs and a couple of dynamic outings up forward from Jye Menzie and Jayden Davey.

Elijah Tsatas

34 disposals, 14 clearances

Elijah continues to win a lot of the ball for us particularly at stoppages, which has become a really prominent strength for him.

For us, we’re still working on and looking to improve the transition elements of his game.

Ben Hobbs

30 disposals, 11 tackles, seven clearances, four marks

‘Hobbsy’ played the first three quarters and had a really dominant performance around the ball.

He was strong in the contest and showed a much improved effort this week – he’s missed a bit of footy recently so it’s good to see him back at his best.

Sam Weideman

12 disposals, nine marks

‘Weids’ keeps finding himself in awkward situations, copping plenty of stitches to the head after a big knock.

He managed to come back on and actually looked even stronger in defence during that final term with some big grabs.

We really missed him over the last few weeks to suspension and it’s great to have him back, we’re excited to see him build his defensive craft over the final weeks of the season.

Will Setterfield

22 disposals, eight clearances, six tackles

‘Setters’ was pretty solid for us, I thought.

Similar to ‘Hobbsy’ and ‘Lij’, he was involved in the clearances really well and tackled strongly.

A pretty well-rounded contributor for us on the day.

Lewis Hayes

19 disposals, six marks

‘Hayesy’ was okay throughout the course of the day.

The best part of his game was his ball use in the conditions, which was pretty consistent and quite attacking.

We encourage our defenders to get involved in transition and he’s been good in starting that for us.

Nick Bryan

53 hit-outs, 11 disposals, three clearances, three tackles

Again, Nick’s rucking effort was really good.

He came into the game a little bit sore from last week, which probably showed around the ground at times, but it was great to see him push through and compete really strongly for us.

Alwyn Davey Jnr

16 disposals, four tackles, one goal

Alwyn had some real highlights in his game this week.

The way he was able to win the ball on the ground and break free of a few tackles really opened up some opportunities for us, but he also got back up the ground to defend and help us win the ball back, which was really pleasing.

Luamon Lual

18 disposals, four marks, four tackles

‘Luey’s still finding a fair bit of ball off half back, which has been good.

He continues to provide us with good shape and rebound out of defence and he’s learning with every week how to handle different opponents and improve his defensive craft.

Jayden Davey

12 disposals, three goals

Jayden looks lively every week and he made things happen on Sunday.

His ability to defend inside forward 50 was really impressive beyond just him hitting the scoreboard – he had some really good chasing efforts without the footy which the stats didn’t really show.

Archie Roberts

25 disposals, four marks

Archie continues to play some really consistent footy for us.

He’s been used at half back in the last couple of weeks and he just keeps finding the ball, shapes contests really nicely and uses the ball well.

He’s becoming an all-round good player in multiple positions and the more flexibility he keeps adding to his game, the better he’s going to be.

Vigo Visentini

Eight disposals, eight hit-outs, three marks, one goal

Vigo played predominantly forward and kicked a really crucial goal to start the last term and give us some momentum.

He competed really well in the air and fought pretty well in the ruck with the limited minutes he had in the centre bounce.

Again, he’s always creating something for us and showing some good signs.

Tex Wanganeen

18 disposals, three marks, two clearances

Tex found a bit of the ball, albeit he wasn’t able to be as damaging in the windy conditions this week.

He had some tricky matchups this week and was able to hold his own quite well, which was promising on the defensive side of his game.

Jye Menzie

12 disposals, three goals, three clearances

When you watch ‘Menz’ play, he just looks AFL quality.

He’s got that elite acceleration and spatial awareness which helped in those three goals, and given it was a bit of a graveyard in the forward line at times with the weather, he played quite a good all-round game.