Essendon coach Matthew Knights has hailed his side's 33-point upset win over St Kilda as their best of the season.
The win, was the Bombers third straight over St Kilda, an enviable record in itself, and their fifth top-eight scalp from their seven wins this season.
The Bombers lead from start to finish, setting up the win with a seven-goal-to-one opening term against an uncharacteristically lackluster St Kilda side.
Building on last week's breakthrough win over the Kangaroos, Knights admitted it was probably the Bombers' best performance of the season along with a 40-point win over Hawthorn in round 6.
"I think it was probably well up there," Knights said.
"I think setting the tone and the agenda of the game, I though we did that right from the start, we didn't give St Kilda a look in after that," he said.
The Bombers were on fire early and Knights believed that was what separated the two sides.
"The seven-goal first quarter...against a great team like St Kilda to do that tonight was really pleasing."
"To keep St Kilda to three goals in the first half...all credit to players, the way they went about it and structured up."
In a night of positives for the Bombers, ruckman David Hille returned to the side after several weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.
He reunited with Paddy Ryder and although he didn't have his usual impact, (11 touches, six marks and 14 hit outs) he did chime in with two goals and regained some much needed fitness.
"Hille makes Patrick Ryder grow and it makes the stoppages a lot more competitive so it's just great to have the big fella back in the line up," he said.
Knights was also quick to herald his backmen, who put a halt to six week's of frail resistance - conceding an average of 125 points a game - to limit the Saints to just 11 goals.
"It was good for (Cale) Hooker and (Michael) Hurley to play on great forwards that (Nick) Riewoldt and (Justin) Koschitzke are."
He pointed out Heath Hocking, who finished with 30 touches, and midfielder-cum-defender Brent Stanton (36) as other shining lights as he looked to settle down on a back six for the future.
"Hocking has had a really good year as a young player, he's been fantastic for us coming off the rookie list."
And Knights said it was a strategic move to place Stanton on the half back line in a bid to use his silky disposal, rather than a lesson for a player who's struggled in recent weeks under some heavy midfield tags.
That and Dustin Fletcher's continued good form drew no shortage of superlatives from the coach.
Fletcher racked up 24 disposals, took six marks and had six rebound 50s as he patrolled the back half on first-gamer Tommy Lynch, making a number of key spoils.
"There's been talk about capping rotations...I don't want to do that because if we can rotate him three times a quarter when he's 40-years-old we might be able to get him through to there."
"But he's just an amazing footballer, stood the test of time, the modern game… he just keeps developing."
Knights said there were no major injury worries with Scott Gumbleton (back) feeling some pain while Alwyn Davey (shin) limped at stages as well.
Instead he looked forward to seizing on some areas for improvement .
"We've played decent footy against higher ranked teams, now what we've got to do it have the maturity to play well against teams ranked around us and below us, so that's our challenge...and another challenge is to play better when we go interstate," he said.