Essendon Coach John Worsfold says the Bombers have a lot of improvement left in them in the second half of the season.

The Dons have five wins from their first 11 games and host Port Adelaide next Saturday night at Etihad Stadium.

A victory against premiership fancy GWS was on the cards on Saturday when a goal to Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti cut the Giants lead to nine points with ten minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.

But the class of the Giants came for the fore to hold off the Bombers charge.

“We’ve played really good footy against some of the really good teams in the competition and we still believe we’ve got a lot of improvement left in us as we bring everything together,” Worsfold said.

“There were still times where we reverted back to old habits during the game but the players addressed it at half time and really took the game on.

“It’s exciting, we haven’t really hit our straps yet but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy ... it’s going to be unbelievably hard, but we’re looking forward to the challenge of the remainder of the season.”

Essendon has recorded impressive wins against Hawthorn, Collingwood, Geelong and West Coast this season.

But there were also losses to Carlton and Melbourne where the side never seemed to click into gear.

In the last fortnight the Bombers have been within striking distance late in matches against current top four sides Richmond and the Giants.

“We believe in what we’re trying to achieve and we believe we’re not far off,” Worsfold said.

“But closing that small gap against the best teams in the competition is still a lot of hard work.

“It’s not something that will happen overnight.

“We had a really good win against Geelong, a really good win against West Coast, Richmond – who have been in pretty good form all year – we were right in that game last week and we were right in the game against another gun team (GWS) this week.

“But you can’t keep losing by small margins, you need to keep the wins ticking over and that’s what we’re aiming for.”