ESSENDON coach James Hird has vowed not to back off in his quest to create a playing group strong enough to compete with the League's best, but concedes the club made mistakes.

The Bombers' season ended with a 32-point loss to Collingwood on Saturday night, making it seven straight losses in the last seven rounds.

Hird and his fitness team have faced scrutiny for their pre-season conditioning program, which saw a heavy injury toll and the team run out of steam after a blistering start to the year.

But he remains adamant the club is on the right track.

"It's a time for reflection, and to work out how we can get better from the year," Hird said post-match.

"We certainly played some exciting football, we developed a lot in our footy club in the first half of the year, but it didn't pay off for us in the back half of the year.

"We've copped a lot of criticism for our injuries and the way we've trained our players.

"We've made some mistakes, I'll accept that, but we know how hard physically this game is to play, and we have to keep training our players to get there.

"On reflection, if I look at what we're trying to do and the path we're on, we're trying to build a footy club that can play 22 games a year, and play three or four finals a year, and that's going to take a while.

"This year we probably got 14 rounds out, whereas last year we got eight rounds, and we're hoping that next year we get even more.

"We won't be backing off."

Hird will call his players in for individual reviews early next week, before starting a "holistic" review of the year that will look at coaching, game style, fitness and medical.

The second-year coach said he didn't expect to make radical changes to the playing list during the trade period, believing he had the nucleus of a successful outfit.

"We're normally not that active in [the trade period], and unless something comes up that we really like we won't be that active," Hird said.

"We think we're getting close but we obviously need to keep adding.

"We're a drafting-type club, and then you can get them fitter and stronger, and you get another four months of teaching."

Hird described Saturday night's performance as "OK", after the Bombers started quickly and remained within arm's reach of Collingwood until midway through the final quarter.

"The boys competed, they tried, they worked hard, they made some errors," he said.

"I thought it was a good performance for two-and-a-half quarters."

He also praised Michael Hurley for his job on Collingwood key forward Travis Cloke after half-time, saying the versatile big man "might have made up his mind and my mind where he should play."

Hird also lamented the last-minute loss of ruckman Tom Bellchambers, who injured himself in the warm-up.

"It was pretty symbolic of our year, really, wasn't it?" He said.

"He went for a ruck contest, rolled his ankle on the runner's foot, and strained a ligament and couldn't run.

"When the doctor came to me and said Bellchambers is out, I actually laughed.

"Not because I'm not worried about Tom, it was just, what more could happen in a year?

"Hopefully we've got rid of all our bad luck and we'll move on next year."