Essendon midfielder Brent Statnon is confident his side has plenty to take away from Friday night’s 22-point loss to Sydney at the SCG.

The ladder leader jumped the Bombers in the first quarter before going on to match them for the remainder of the contest.

Stanton said the Swans five goal to one opening term was what cost his side the game.

“The first quarter was something we need to address, it is probably the final margin in the end,” Stanton said.

“They jumped us again, similar to earlier in the year and we just couldn’t peg it back so that was probably the main difference.”

“We settled ourselves at half time and as you saw we played a lot better footy in that second half.”

“We matched them from quarter time onwards so that was probably the focus going into main breaks, that we just try and win quarter by quarter to peg them back but unfortunately we just didn’t get there in the end.”

The veteran midfielder believes his side can take a lot out of the game heading into Friday night’s clash against Richmond.

“Sydney are a fantastic team and we are going to take a lot of confidence out of tonight’s game,” he said.

“We didn’t win and we didn’t play to our potential but we know what we can do in patches so as you saw tonight we can match it with the best team in the competition at the moment.”

“It is a tough ask to come up here and try to win games of footy against the best team but it was a good effort and we still have a lot of areas that we need to improve on.”

“It was mentioned in the meeting that we need to come prepared to play for a whole four quarter effort next week against Richmond.”

Essendon has a seven day break ahead of Friday night’s all important clash against the Tigers at the MCG.