Coach Brad Scott wants his charges to find an 'Essendon edge' this AFL season - but without crossing the line.
The Bombers claimed a fiery, combative win over Hawthorn in round one and will attempt to replicate that intensity against Sydney at the SCG on Saturday night.
When asked if he liked the nasty streak, Scott said: "Oh, we've been very explicit that we want the Essendon edge.
"I think all Essendon people and people who have followed our club for a long period of time know what an Essendon edge looks like, and we want that - but we want to be totally in control of what we're doing.
"I thought for the large part of the game, we did that pretty well against Hawthorn.
"And when you play an aggressive contact, combative sport like AFL football players play on the edge, and we want that edge, but we aren't gonna go over the line either.
"So we got that right at times on the weekend, we got that wrong at times. So we'll continue to find the line and what the Essendon edge looks like."
Scott dismissed the suggestion Essendon could target a particular Swan after they wound up, then limited the influence of Hawks skipper James Sicily - which he said was "circumstantial" rather than planned.
"You've got to be just totally in control of what you're doing, in control of your system and your process," he said.
"If you start worrying too much about the opposition and trying to get under their skin, you take your eye off what's really important for you.
"So we'll just be really focused on what we need to do."
The Bombers will be without Mason Redman against Sydney, who Scott labelled one of the AFL's "benchmark" teams, after he received a one-match ban for striking Jai Newcombe.
"The first thing is that we want to be in control of our actions out there on the field," Scott said.
"Mason doesn't need for me to tell him that he did the wrong thing. He knows that himself and he's very disappointed first of all, giving the free kick away, the ramifications of the MRO obviously exacerbate that.
"But we want to be a team that takes responsibility for our actions and Mason's taken responsibility."
Scott said the tightened definition of a strike to include an open hand would have made appealing Redman's suspension a waste of time.
"Our advice was we had no chance of winning an appeal so it would be negligent to give up $10,000 of our soft cap to try and challenge an unwinnable appeal," he said.
