GAME analyst and education coordinator Craig Jennings says this Sunday’s clash against Essendon at Etihad Stadium will be a great opportunity for Melbourne to test itself against a team featuring some players in red-hot form.

Jennings said several Essendon players stood out during its win over Collingwood at the MCG on ANZAC Day, adding that his team needed to be right on its game this weekend.

“This is a really exciting game for us to play, because Essendon is in the eight and they’re a big footy club, and they’re on record that they want to be a high-scoring team and that’s coming out in their games,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“They’re powerful in their scoring and they move the footy really well, so we have to have really good attention to detail in what we focus on and what’s important to us to get a win.

“Essendon has got some players in really good form. We saw the efforts of Joe Daniher on ANZAC Day, plus Michael Hurley, Zach Merrett and Orazio Fantasia played great games. All of their good players are in really good form at the moment, so that makes it an exciting test for us.

“We’ve spent some time with [manager of development] Matty Egan, who’s just come out of the Essendon footy club, so we get some great insights from him. Importantly, it’s what our line coaches do in getting the boys ready to play the type of game we want to play.”

Although Jennings said it was frustrating to drop recent matches, he was far from despondent about his team’s progression.

“It’s disappointing to lose the three games, but we learn from them,” he said.

“We’re seeing plenty of signs of the brand we want to play, regardless of personnel and regardless of whether players are being taken out of the game, due to injury.

“Goody (Simon Goodwin) has a high expectation that we find a way to win, so there are plenty of positives to take out of every game.

“Importantly, we’ve taken a lot of lessons out of each game and we’ve been able to review and train to improve in the following weeks.”