Essendon are confident they can withstand the heat of a desperate West Coast and claim back-to-back victories for the first time this AFL season.
The Bombers snapped a four-game losing run and sealed their third victory of the season against St Kilda and will attempt to back that up at Optus Stadium on Friday night.
"We always were pretty positive around the club but it's always great to come back in after the weekend, having won the game," young gun Ben Hobbs said.
"It'd be great (to beat West Coast). It'd be fantastic. Then we want to build into the back end of the year.
"So it'd be a great boost for us after the mid-season bye."
Hobbs won the AFL Rising Star nomination for an impressive performance against St Kilda while fellow youngsters Archie Perkins and Massimo D'Ambrosio also shone.
"Mass did really well on debut. He looks like he can definitely play at this level and Archie's been great and he's going to keep building as well," Hobbs said.
"So it's great to play some footy with those guys but there's a lot of senior guys as well who are playing some good footy and really helping us develop."
West Coast's gritty loss to Geelong painted a far better picture of the Eagles than their otherwise meek season record.
They are currently on a club-record nine-game losing run and will be desperate to kick on from their efforts against the Cats.
"Getting that winning feeling back would be nice, but that takes time, and it's not as easy as you think," Eagles coach Adam Simpson said.
"Getting belief and expectation and all those things - I think the last couple of games we've played ,we've been better, but we haven't had a win. We're desperate for a win
"There's definitely some signs there of improvement, and I think it comes with personnel as well. We've got to be honest with that.
"The stronger the team, the better you should look. But we started with intent (against Geelong last week) and we were up for the fight. That's our goal every week."
Eagles star Jeremy McGovern is out with his broken ribs, and is no guarantee to play again this year but Tim Kelly and Liam Ryan should return from the flu.
Essendon are without Andrew McGrath (adductor) while Darcy Parish is likely to miss again with a corked calf.
