Melbourne coach Mark Neeld admits he’s still at a loss as to why his players performed so badly in their start to the AFL season.

The Demons were hugely disappointing in a 79-point hammering by Port Adelaide and bookmakers are showing little belief they have turned things around before Saturday night’s clash with Essendon at the MCG, offering $7 for a win.

“No answer, don’t know. I don’t know if there is anyone who can give you an answer,” Neeld said when asked if he had nailed down why they were so poor.

He said his players were “flimsy” at times against Port and they needed to find that hardness against the Bombers, who opened with an impressive 35-point away win over Adelaide.

“We just need the competitive element. Let’s go contest by contest. That’s the basic ingredient,” Neeld said.

“We did the review and the basic ingredient of competitive nature wasn’t there.”

David Rodan, Cam Pedersen and Luke Tapscott were the casualties from round one, while Lynden Dunn is out with a hamstring injury.

Neeld said that trio players had to show more to regain their positions in the top side.

“Those guys have been wonderful here so far in the five months, but they didn’t perform the way we need them to perform and they need to go back to Casey (Scorpions) and start performing the way they need to perform.”

In contrast Essendon coach James Hird was delighted with his team’s opening performance, which came in the midst of an ongoing doping investigation.

After a long list of soft tissue injuries last season, he said the Bombers were fit and firing.

“I can’t remember coaching a team that’s unchanged, so that’s pleasant,” said Hird, who took over as coach in 2011.

“We’ve got some headaches around selection because we have got a full list of 44 players who are able to play and we’ve got some very good players missing out.”

Hird discounted the Demons’ insipid showing, saying teams could quickly rebound.

“We’ve had losses like that in the last 12 months,” he said.

“You just have to change a few things.

“It’s pretty easy to build off a loss and get something out of it.”

With round one of the AFL spread over 10 days, the Bombers’ last game was 14 days ago.

Hird said his team had upped its training to try to compensate for the lack of game time.

“We’ve had one game in 29 days and this will be the second in that period,” he said.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know guys are fresh, they’re excited, we’ve got a good team out there and they should play well tomorrow.”