ESSENDON coach Matthew Knights did not tell the Essendon board that the Bombers were capable of finals in 2008, but that the club should be "aiming" to play finals.

Knights yesterday clarified what he said in his successful pitch to the Essendon board last year and said he did not overrate the 2008 prospects of the playing list before he took the job as senior coach.

"What I've always said is that if you're in the AFL industry and the Essendon Football Club, you should be aiming to play finals each and every year, because (with) players like Matthew Lloyd and Dustin Fletcher, you'd be remiss as a coach if you didn't aim to play finals," Knights told The Age.

"Whether you've got the cattle or the ammunition to do so … well that's another thing. Realistically, the 2010 scenario is where we would like to be pushing up into the higher echelon of the ladder and giving yourself then a chance … once you've hit that point, that you then can sustain that over a period."

Knights won the Essendon position ahead of his main challenger, former Bomber and Hawthorn assistant coach Damian Hardwick, who is understood to have given the board a less positive assessment of Essendon's short-term prospects. It is believed Hardwick suggested that the club would have short-term pain and had to make significant list changes.

Knights said, however, that was he was "realistic" and had not overrated the playing list. "Certainly didn't overrate the list. I was very realistic about the list. I was strong and very honest where I thought I had to be and I also was very honest where I thought the positive parts of the list lay … but all along I said I'm going to inject youth into the team, that was from day one."

Knights said his vision of where the team was headed was at one with the club board. "I said we'll be aiming to play finals this year. As a club you should be aiming to play finals every year, and they agreed, because Essendon is a club that has a super proud history … if your team isn't aiming to play finals, what are you in the comp for?

"So that was an aim — to play to our maximum, play in the finals …

"In the same breath, I said I won't deter the progress of … bringing a team through together by … not playing youth.

"So, therefore, we'll be aiming to play finals, but all the youth are going to be given opportunity … so that was the vision I had and the vision the board was, you know, completely united on — that we're going to aim to play at our maximum, week-in, week-out, but we are going to give young players a lot of opportunity and we're going to bring a group through together."

Knights suggested that Essendon's attacking game style — criticised for its lack of defence and accountability — was not permanent and would evolve into a more defensive form as the team matured.

"At this point, it's predominantly an attacking brand due to, I want to find out if the players can make good decisions at top-end speed and execute their skills. And obviously over time there will be more, a greater emphasis on a defensive element and it's not to say it's not happening now …

"Even in the last two weeks we've adjusted certain areas of our game that I think will help us defensively, and it's just getting that better balance in certain areas of the ground.

"There's no certain point where it will be ramped up specifically, but with this young group you can't throw everything offensively and defensively at them at once, and we're doing a lot of work with our attacking brand …

"I would say we're working on certain areas of our defence, but we certainly haven't thrown everything at them yet."

Knights said he had spoken to the whole playing list about Jason Johnson and Damian Peverill's situation, both before and after the club's decision to place them behind younger players in selection came to light in the media.

"I hadn't spoken to (chairman) Ray (Horsburgh) before the press conference, but I spoke to him two or three hours afterwards.

"Ray and I are fine, and we've got a relationship that we can talk … very, I suppose, openly with each other. There's no grudges — you just move on.

"I was disappointed with the way it was played out because I thought, as a club, we'd handled it well behind closed doors."