Robert Shaw says Essendon’s heavy losses in recent weeks shouldn’t divert attention away from the club’s overall aims this season.

The Bombers have fallen to Fremantle and Hawthorn by a combined 187 points in the last fortnight.

But Shaw said the Dons must maintain the plan of trying to uncover their next group of elite players.

“You don’t diverge off that path at all,” he said.

“So while in the short term the season’s got very tough … you must never lose track of what this season is all about and what you’re trying to achieve.

“While you’ve got short term goals – and that’s GWS this week – you must never forget about what success will really look like at the end of the year. 

“Once again, it comes down to exposing players and finding players to go into next year’s side.”

Despite sitting at the bottom of the ladder, Essendon has managed to unearth a number of players capable of playing at senior level.

Darcy Parish and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti have become regulars in the senior line-up.

Michael Hartley and Mitch Brown are holding down key positions. 

While Zach Merrett, Joe Daniher and Orazio Fantasia are continuing their development.

David Zaharakis has returned to his best and fairest winning form and Matt Dea is staking a claim for a permanent position on the list.

“Everything should be designed about creating an environment so that at the end of the year we’ve achieved ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ and ‘d’ … we might not have got ‘e’ but we got four of the five (goals) that we targeted,” Shaw said.

Jason Ashby collected 25 possessions in the VFL on Sunday and Shaw expects the 22 year old to be in strong consideration for a call-up this week.

Shaw also said the nature of Jayden Laverde’s injury (shoulder, and not a soft tissue problem) could allow him to return after his three goal comeback match in the VFL.

“He would have done a lot of running so I would be looking at bringing him back into the side also,” Shaw said. 

“Michael Hartley would be very close I would imagine and Walla has to come straight back in after the rest period.

“We went experienced and old last week against Hawthorn so maybe just have a look at another couple of kids, I think that’s really important.”