ESSENDON coach James Hird admitted he was blindsided by his team's lacklustre performance in Saturday night's shock six-point loss to Melbourne.

The second-placed Bombers couldn't match the intensity of the Demons, who were winless and anchored to the bottom of the premiership ladder going into the clash, which caught Hird unaware.

"[The team] trained really well Wednesday and really well yesterday, so that [performance] came as a bit of surprise," Hird said.

"But it's one game. We'll analyse it, we'll look at it, we'll talk to the players about it and we'll get on with next week as quickly as we can."

Hird dismissed the notion that his high-intensity game style was unduly tiring his charges.

"I think every side gets tired as the year goes on, but are we getting any more tired than other teams? I don't think so," he said.

"It's a long season, but we've got to come up every week.

"Everything we're doing in terms of our recovery and the way we test the players says that they're not tiring, but I thought tonight we looked like we couldn't run across the ground as well as we have been."

Forwards Michael Hurley and Stewart Crameri went goalless and kicked three behinds each on a disastrous night in front of goal for Essendon.

"We couldn't buy a goal," Hird agreed.

"Every time we went forward we found another way to miss the goal or muck it up.

"We'll look at the game, we'll review it, but we certainly won't be spending too much time on that game."

Hird denied the Bombers, whose only loss before round 10 was a one-point defeat to Collingwood, had taken the much-maligned Demons lightly.

"We certainly didn't put a team in that we thought underestimated them," he said.

"We played everyone who was fit, we didn't rest players, we played a fit team so the preparation wasn't underestimating them, but certainly in two-and-a-half hours and the way we played, coached and did things didn't work.

"We'll have to go away and look at why they didn't work."