Essendon GM of football Dan Richardson says the club’s heavy round one loss has not raised the stakes of the Bombers’ clash with St Kilda on Saturday.

While the side is determined to reverse its form following the disappointing defeat to Greater Western Sydney, Richardson said consistency is the key approaching any game in the league’s competitive modern landscape.

“I think the stakes are high in any game and what we need to do as a footy is approach every game in a consistent manner whether we win or loss,” Richardson said on The Essential Listen on Thursday.

“Even if we had a win last week, I’d like to think we’d still look at and review what we did and what we did well and where we can improve.

“This week’s really no different, but certainly wanting to put in an improved performance is at the front of our minds.” 

The flat performance from the Bombers prompted several suggestions that the side had failed to implement a fresh game plan, but Richardson confirmed there had been no significant alterations to tactics entering the 2019 season.

“There hasn’t been a great deal of change to our game plan,” he said.

“What we’ve tried to do is continue to build on what we saw at the back end of the last year and the brand of footy that we want to play.

“We’ve tried to add something to our defensive stuff, but that’s not a reason in any way, shape or form for us to fail to compete in the contest and around the ball. 

“In terms of the way we would like to move the ball, there hasn’t been any change in that regard either.” 

The Bombers stormed home in 2018 with 10 victories from their final 14 games, but Richardson says the club identified its defence as a key area for improvement this year.

The addition of decorated assistant coach Ben Rutten was one step towards rectifying that as the club looks to return to the top and take further steps towards achieving the ultimate success.

“We’ve just really looked at being a bit stronger behind the ball and trying to restrict opposition scores.

“I think we were in the top three or four clubs last year for contested footy, but we were about 11th or 12th in scores against, so we just identified that as an area that we can improve and that’s what the best teams do.

“As much as last year was some improvement, we still in the back half of the year didn’t beat Collingwood, didn’t beat Richmond, didn’t beat Hawthorn.

“We’re building a team to win a premiership, we’re not building a team to finish eighth or ninth or sixth even.”

The fascinating match will begin at 4:35pm at Marvel Stadium.

CLICK HERE TO RECEIVE THE WEEKLY BOMBER BULLETIN