VFL coach Matthew Egan says the team is gelling at the right time in the season but he's not allowing himself to look ahead to the finals.

A win on Saturday against Northern Blues will cement the Bombers spot in the upcoming finals series.

Egan said the Bombers were in a fortunate position that the finals were in their own hands and they simply have to win.

“Our focus is just beating the opposition this week,” he said.

“All our preparation and planning is as normal, in the last few weeks we have kept it team based.

“I think we’re starting to gel pretty nicely towards the back end of the year, nothing will be new this week, it’s about playing our style of footy, playing for each other and in an exciting way, if we do that the result will take care of itself.”

Egan will wait anxiously for the AFL team selection and will pick the best 23 players to take on the Blues.

“We have to base the team off what we need against the opposition this week,” he said.  

“This week's selection will be really tight and all we can do is pick it on form, that’s what we have done all year. If you deserve a game and are playing well, then you get a game – we’ve kept it consistent all year.”

After two bad losses against Geelong and the Casey Scorpions, the Bombers have bounced back with wins over Williamstown and North Ballarat.

Essendon took their game back to the basics and stressed the team care aspect as well as some added excitement around the group.

“It’s important that we are building our form. For us it was getting back to our brand of footy and the last two weeks I think we’ve done that really well. 

“There has been some real excitement in the last two weeks, bringing in Vic Carboni, Charles Lill, Nick Hind and Alex Boyse against Williamstown and Alex Marklew played his first game this weekend and looked comfortable down back as the 23^rd player.

“We have the youth that are generating the excitement like Nash Holmes, who are really excited to play – but I think our experienced guys have been the ones driving the form.

“Shaun Edwards is in really consistent form, Aaron Heppell, Jason Ashby and getting guys like James Polkinghorne and Shaun McKernan back and really helps settle the team.

“It’s another huge game this week.

“Northern have a lot of young talent coming through from their last few draft years. They have had some really good wins this year. Their season has been a little bit like ours, but on their day they could beat anyone.”

• Please note this Saturday’s game time against Northern Blues has been changed, now commencing at 11am to allow fans time to get to the MCG.