The Western Bulldogs might be sitting on top of the ladder as the last remaining undefeated team, but coach Luke Beveridge said they have “a long way to go” before thinking about higher honours this season.

In a good omen for the Dogs, they have made their best start to a season (4-0) since they last qualified for a grand final in 2021.

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But Beveridge intimated the manner in which they played the second half of their 34-point win over strugglers Essendon on Sunday night at Marvel Stadium was a sobering reminder of how much work they had to do, especially considering they haven’t won a final in five years.

“We’ve just got no runs on the board,” he said.

“So, promising start, but we haven’t sustained anything like this any other year so we just need to remind ourselves every week that if we want to emerge as that team, there’s a long way to go.”

After kicking 10 of the first 11 goals and leading by 54 points at half-time, the Bulldogs were surprisingly outplayed in the second half by the winless Bombers.

“You saw it tonight. Under pressure, we didn’t handle it too well at times,” Beveridge said.

“We fumbled, we coughed it up, we missed open field targets too many times in a game where the conditions seemed perfect.

“So we’ve just got to keep pushing the button on how aspirational we are and just keep reminding ourselves it’s got to be a week-to-week thing.”

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Beveridge admitted it was “an ugly game to watch” with both teams committing their fair share of skill errors throughout.

“After quarter-time, the game fell away for us, and so you give Essendon credit for their pressure,” he said.

“But just the blatant turnover stuff, and the in-close side of things – we just didn’t seem like ourselves.

“We felt we should’ve played better.

“It’s a difficult one to talk to your players about post, because we’re all really grateful for what they put in and winning the game, but I think they seem pretty flat that they probably hadn’t been at their absolute best.”

The Bulldogs headed into the game without star midfielder Ed Richards, who was a very late out after experiencing knee soreness in the warm-up, but Beveridge was confident it was a minor issue.

“We didn’t want to take any risks and took him out,” Beveridge said.

During the match, the Dogs also lost Tim English (knee) and Arthur Jones (hamstring) who looked on the verge of a breakout game with 10 touches, four grabs and a career-high three goals from just 55 per cent game time.

“He was impressive and it just seems like every time he just gets going, he gets injured unfortunately,” Beveridge said of the 20-gamer, who has only managed seven matches since 2023.

“He hasn’t been able to have any momentum in his AFL journey over recent times when he’s really developed into a player who can have an impact on the competition.

“So we’ve got to do some work with him to get his durability up a little bit, but it’d be a real shame if he’s out of the game again for any period of time.”

Prolific midfielder Ed Richards (knee soreness) was a late exclusion before the match.