At his previous football home, St Kilda, Brendon Goddard played in three losing preliminary finals before winning one.     

His first Grand Final was his 11^th final overall, and came in his fifth finals series. It was an evolution, and from one final to the next the Saints gradually built up to be premiership contenders.

"There's heartaches you've got to get through to get to that stage," Goddard said this week. "It's all a learning curve. You almost have to earn your stripes."

Goddard is a "firm believer" in building finals experience before being ready to strike for a flag, but is only one of five players at Essendon (including new recruit Paul Chapman) to have played in a winning final.

The club's most recent finals victory came a decade ago in 2004. 

Last year the Bombers were kicked out of the finals as part of the AFL's penalty for the supplements saga. But with a new season upon them, Goddard said a top-eight finish must be this year's goal, which he hopes will lead to longer September campaigns.   

"It's the aim, but I guess backing up my argument, it is crucial that we play finals because it's an apprenticeship you have to go through and earn to get to that prelim and have a chance at making a Grand Final," he said.

Of the past five seasons, West Coast in 2011 and Adelaide in 2012 are the only sides to jump into the top-four having missed the finals the previous year.

That's not to say Goddard and the Bombers aren't setting themselves for a big crack at it, starting with North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.

After round 17 last year the Bombers were second on the ladder, and they beat five finalists through the season. More to the point, Essendon's case sits outside any before in football history: nobody knows how they would have gone in the finals if not for the off-field scandal, other than the fact they would have been there. 

Goddard, who joined the club as a restricted free agent in 2012, is hopeful players with 75-100 games experience will step up and lead the way back to that position. The group accounts for nearly a quarter of the Bombers' senior list, including David Zaharakis, Courtenay Dempsey, Jake Melksham and Michael Hurley.

"We talk about at Essendon that we've been training to play a certain style for the last few years so there is some consistencies in the way we train which we will implement on game day," the 28-year-old said.

"It does make it a little bit easier doing that because we've been training a certain way and style over a longer period of time. It's more ingrained now when you play and those guys are going to be 100-game players and they're almost hitting that physical peak.

"That's where we're going to get most improvement and hopefully they're the guys who are going to take us to the next level."

Essendon faces the Kangaroos after a winless NAB Challenge and practice match series, but was playing those games during a heavy training phase in a tweaked pre-season structure.

Under new fitness boss Justin Crow and coach Mark Thompson, the Bombers "trained harder for longer". Instead of tapering off around the pre-season competition, the club has kept the players' program high, with the four-week NAB Challenge series still treated as a training block.

"It was quite difficult to get up for games," Goddard said.

Adjusting the training structure is not intended to push back a form peak, Goddard says, but to maintain consistency longer into the campaign.

"History shows our last six weeks of the season we have tapered off, so it's planned that we actually are still able to perform at a high level later in the season."

It wasn't an issue for Goddard individually last year, after playing every game and winning his first best and fairest in his first season with the club. Stats-wise, last year matched up well compared to his All Australian years in 2009 and 2010, without perhaps as many standout, best-on-ground performances.

He hopes to maintain that level if not increase it in 2014. "If I'm able to perform at that I'd be happy," he said.

What might come with it is a change in role, with Goddard likely to spend more time in attack. He's aiming to get close to his career-best season tally of 24 goals, with the half-back sweeping role unlikely this year.

Although ASADA's investigation and its offshoots continue to "bubble away" in the background, Goddard says players are focused and ready for a new year.   

"I think we've been through enough to decipher what’s important and who to listen to and what to listen to," he said.

"The mood is really good. We're just excited about getting back into round one, and getting into the real stuff now the pre-season stuff is over and done with."