Essendon matched the reigning premiers for three quarters of tonight's clash at the MCG but were outclassed in the final quarter.

Geelong showed they will again be one of the toughest teams in the competition, finishing the game 31-points ahead despite trailing the Bombers going into the final quarter.

Essendon assistant coach, Ashley Prescott, said Essendon wasted too many chances and Geelong made them pay.

"There were a number of positives in the way we played but there were also a lot of missed opportunities and if you don't take your chances against Geelong they'll sweep the ball away," he said. 

"We certainly just dropped off late in the quarters and especially in the last quarter and they got away from us.

"I think it's a combination probably of fatigue, execution and effective disposal of the ball. When you start making mistakes Geelong make you pay for it dearly."

For the third game in a row, tall young defender Cale Hooker was a shining light in defence.

"I think Cale Hooker was pretty exceptional across half-back and I think generally our defence played reasonably well tonight," Prescott said.

"Certainly some of the efforts of our backmen against some really good forwards means they can hold their heads up high.

"Jobe Watson certainly from quarter time onwards was fantastic too in the way he used his hands and David Hille had his first game after a knee reconstruction and battled on exceptionally.

"So certainly we had some very good players tonight but we probably didn't have enough of a spread of players to win the game.”

Prescott said the debut of 21-year-old Ben Howlett was very impressive.

"Really positive debut, he certainly didn't look out of place against one of the best teams in the competition, so there's some real positives with him," he said. 

"Some of his clearance work was really good and hopefully he'll get better for that experience."

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Prescott said while the loss hurt, the team would enter next week's clash with Fremantle feeling confident.

"I think the way the players executed the game style that we've been working on was a big positive. There were periods of time in the game that we really kept the ball in our forward half of the ground," he said. 

"We had good desperation and all our players were playing good, aggressive one-on-one footy. Other positves are that all players got through pretty much unscathed."

Prescott said there was no need for any major changes ahead of next week.

"There's always little things you might tweak in regards to how you want to play a certain opposition," he said. 

"But we're certainly endeavouring to keep taking the game on and hopefully create some more scoring opportunities

"They (Geelong) didn't have a lot more scoring chances, it was just their ability to make the most of them, and I think that's what hurt us."

Hille was reported in the fourth quarter for charging James Bartell.