Essendon coach James Hird feels his side must continue to work on improving their defensive game if they are to match it with the best teams in the league.

The Bombers coach is confident his side can improve on their eleventh place finish of last season.

“We are a side that still wants to work on the fundamentals of our game which is winning our own football, using it well and defending a lot better than we have,” Hird said.

“I think our all over defense has been average the last few years so that is an area that we really need to improve and we have been working very hard on it.”

“It is obviously about performances and improving our performances at training which will lead to an improved performance on match day.”

Big men Scott Gumbleton and Joe Daniher are the only duo to have injury concerns throughout the preseason.

Hird said the lack of injuries had given him confidence in the capabilities of his side this season.

“We think that to date it has been a much healthier list and that has made us happy,” he said.

“Interrupted pre-seasons normally lead to interrupted seasons and it is only early in the pre-season we are still two months from our first game so we are not jumping up and down too much.”

“I think we have to have more consistency in performances in the second half of the year which is pretty obvious from our results in the second half of last year.”

Essendon players return to the training track on Tuesday following a break for the Australia day long weekend.