Essendon coach Mark Thompson is confident his side is beginning to play its best football at the right time of the season contrary to the last three seasons.

The coach has labeled Sunday’s win over Collingwood his side’s most complete performance of the last four seasons.

Essendon has had a strong start over the last two seasons only to fall away losing five of their last six games in 2012 and their last seven matches in a row in 2013.

Thompson said the club had managed its playing list well throughout the season to be in a strong position heading into the back half of the year.

“We are very fit. We have not taken any risks with any players right throughout the year and we have tried a lot of kids so we are in a good position,” Thompson said.

“We are still running and this time the last two or three years we haven’t been running.”

“We went right through the pre-season and trained really hard so we didn’t look like we could play and didn’t win a practice match.”

“We have trained them pretty hard during the season, rotated people and it seems to be working at the moment.”

Thompson ranked the 64-point win over Collingwood as the best win from the team since he joined the club.

“That is the best game I have probably seen them play s a group in four years,” he said.

“It was a solid four quarter performance against a good club.”

“The pleasing thing is the defensive part looked like they just knew what they were doing.”

“There was a lot of people critical of our attack early in the year but that didn’t greatly concern me as I think you can always add score.”

“Trying to get teams to play great defence is a lot harder.”

Essendon now faces the challenge of backing up the win over the Pies against an in form Western Bulldogs side at Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.