ESSENDON'S horrendous handball overuse on Saturday wasn't premeditated and was more of a byproduct of the Bombers' forwards failing to find their positions, ruckman Tom Bellchambers says.

Both Bellchambers and coach John Worsfold were emphatic after their 23-point loss to Hawthorn there was no pre-game directive to favour handballs over kicks to try and work through the Hawks' pressure.

Bellchambers said they were forced into the frustrating, often sideways and unproductive style of play because the midfielders simply lacked consistent targets to kick to.

"Our midfielders are looking up at times and maybe not having the forwards in the right position; that's why they're over-handballing and we're turning the ball over," Bellchambers told AFL.com.au.

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"There was no direction to use our hands more, we wanted to look forward and try and get the ball in as quick as possible, but I think there's a little bit of a breakdown with the forwards.

"We need representation more down the line, that's why you get the over-handball around the contests and that's when the fans get frustrated because we're over-handballing it."

Embattled pair Joe Daniher and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti struggled to influence Saturday's contest, while Jake Stringer took just two marks for the day.

James Stewart was the Bombers best option; he took seven marks and kicked one major, but the team had no multiple goal-kickers and cohesively took just four leading marks to the Hawks' 10.

Worsfold was equally as frustrated with the handball to kick ratio, which saw his team rack up 205 handballs to Hawthorn's 141.

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"We certainly don't ever train that, we don't train to handball backwards and put teammates under pressure," he said.

"That's maybe a confidence thing or feeling the pressure, and at AFL level, most of your possessions are under pressure.

"There's players that are out of form and not making good decisions."

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Worsfold said there was nothing physically wrong with McDonald-Tipungwuti, who has lacked his trademark defensive pressure this season, and he backed Daniher and Stringer to "work hard and train hard" to get past their form issues.  

While it seemed on Saturday the Bombers' list of problems had grown, Bellchambers believed the handballing issue in particular was an easy fix.

"It's a set-up thing; it's working on it at training and giving those guys the confidence that when they're in position, we will kick it to them as midfielders," he said.

"It's something we should be able to address this week and look to turn it around pretty quickly."

Bellchambers said he'd benefitted from a rest last week, reflected in a strong performance that saw him pull down a personal best six contested marks and win his battle with Ben McEvoy.

He also said he believed the Bombers had the ability to emerge from their slump and still factor as a challenger in 2018.

"We're not playing great footy at the moment, but we've definitely got the confidence to come out of it," he said.

"As players, we need to start playing better. It's just on us as players to really change that."