Essendon’s ability to compete against the top sides this season has developed through a consistent and dependable game style according to midfielder Brendan Goddard.

The stand-in skipper admits despite some testing times earlier in the season, the plan entrenched within the side is beginning to come to fruition.

"There is a belief and a trust being built within the team and the way you do build that is over consistent actions and the right actions,” he said.

“We’ve been heavily focusing on that from Monday to Friday, and I think our footy is reflecting that.”

“We believe and we’re confident that we play a brand of footy that holds up in big games, finals as well as regular season. And be it any game, it gives us a chance to win it and keeps us in games for longer.”

“It’s a more consistent brand of footy and we’ve always believed that’s been the case, but now the guys are actually seeing it and now they know what it takes to win games of footy and play consistent footy so that’s been the most positive.”

The 29-year-old believes the entire playing group will be learning a lot during this weeks game review after the 22-point loss to premiership favourites Sydney on the weekend.

“I think the guys saw what the difference was compared to the first quarter and the last three quarters,” he said.

"We’ve been talking about our ability to stay in games longer this year and that’s what more mature and the best teams do, they give themselves a chance to win.”

“In the first quarter we beat them around the footy, but their conversion going forward was a lot better than ours, and that’s what they’ve been great at for so long, they’re a bunch of guys that have been doing it for a long period of time.”

“Each of our guys are walking away from that game individually and learning something from it and take a lot out of it.”

Essendon now look ahead to face the Tigers this weekend in back-to-back Friday night games for the Bombers.

Goddard conceded the game is another crucial step in Essendon’s final chances.

“We’ve talked about it before, if we are able to make finals the good thing will be is that is we would be in good form, because we have to win a lot of the remaining matches,” he said.

“We know our destiny is in our own hands and we know what’s required.”