Essendon Coach John Worsfold says any player who fails to return for the first day of pre-season in top condition will be left behind.

The Bombers will be looking to lay the platform for another finals campaign when pre-season training gets underway later this year.

The Club hasn’t made back to back finals appearances since 2004. That season marked the end of a run of seven straight finals campaigns.

Worsfold said the next two months would play a crucial role in ensuring the foundations are laid for another shot at the September action.

“In the big picture stuff – we’re not as good as we need to be,” he told The Footy Panel.

“Our gains to get better start straight away. It starts with how the players look after themselves this week.

“They’re away from the Club for the next eight to ten weeks but they’re not on leave as such.

“As an elite athlete what you do when you’re not in the full time program is going to dictate how good you are when you come back into our full time program.

“That’s the challenge we want to see the players step up to now.

“In late November when they turn up ready to start training again they need to be ready to go flat out and if they’re not, they’re going to get left behind.”

The Bombers 2017 season came to an end after a 65-point loss to Sydney in the Elimination Final at the SCG.

A ten goal second term for the home side sealed the result.

Essendon kicked 5.4 to 6.2 after half time, but a win was beyond reach.

“In that first quarter I thought the players threw everything we had at Sydney,” Worsfold said.

“They withstood that and went in 1.3 (Essendon) to 3.2 (Sydney) at quarter time, so we’d had the same number of shots at goal, we were just accuracy out of being equal.

“Then in that second quarter we couldn’t slow them down at all and that was disappointing that at no point during the quarter did it look like the players got together to say ‘let’s just close this down as much as we can and halt them’.

“We addressed that as a group at half time and the players responded pretty strongly as a group after that and took the game up to Sydney, but obviously the damage was done.”

Worsfold nominated Joe Daniher, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, Orazio Fantasia and Conor McKenna as some of the big improvers in 2017.

Daniher booted 65 goals, 22 more than his previous best. McDonald-Tipungwuti moved from defence to attack for a return of 34 goals and 15 goal assists. Fantasia kicked 39 goals, while McKenna became a mainstay across half back.

Worsfold was also pleased with the contribution of Cale Hooker who kicked 41 goals in his first season as a forward, but missed the final against the Swans.

“He not only was a great support for Joe, but he created a lot for Fantasia, Green and McDonald-Tipungwuti as well because ‘Hooksy’ just doesn’t get out-marked, he either marks it or he brings it to ground,” Worsfold said.

“We certainly missed him in the last game.”

Dyson Heppell played every game for the Club in his return season.

He had 24 possessions, six tackles and kicked a goal against the Swans.

The Captain recorded at least 20 possessions in 22 of his 23 games to average 26.3 disposals per game – a rate he’s bettered just once before (2014).

Despite the impressive statistics, Worsfold expects Heppell can become an even greater weapon in 2018.

“Guys like ‘Hep’ coming back had a really solid year for us but we know he’s got more,” Worsfold said.

“He’s one player coming back that we didn’t give a spell throughout the year. We got him through by managing his training load.

“The best players have their best years when they’re out there training every week.

“Unfortunately ‘Hep’ couldn’t do that this year so our focus has to be having ‘Hep’ doing a really good pre-season where he maintains his workload all the way through.”

The players will begin their pre-season campaign in November.

“Every player has got room to get better and improve, so the bar is raised for every player,” Worsfold said.

“We want to see them learn from this year, on and off field – how they get their bodies right, that’s the key thing.

“Brendon Goddard is an expert … he knows what he’s going to have to do to come back and perform at the elite level but a lot of other players have got a lot to learn and grow and become even better.

“If they use their learning from this year and make sure they put it into action starting now, they’ll improve but they’ve got to drive that.

“We challenge our players to take ownership of how good they want to be and the real absolute test for them is this next eight or ten weeks.

“We’ll know exactly what their work rate is when they come back, we measure every step they take and we measure their heart rates in every drill they do but we don’t have any contact with them over the next eight to ten weeks. 

“This is the real crunch time for the guys who are serious about taking the Club forward.”