Injury-ravaged Essendon will persist with youth despite its second loss on the trot, coach Matthew Knights said on Friday night.

While stressing players would be picked on merit, Knights also said he would resist the temptation to recall more experienced players in a bid to stop Essendon's run of outs.

"I'm going to keep putting in younger players to give them the opportunity to play at this level and the more game time we can get through young guys the better," he said.

"I won't have a specific philosophy to try and steady the ship and get it back on track. We know where we're headed as a group and we know we've got a lot of work to do but we're really excited about the future and where we're headed."

Knights' comments will not be encouraging for seasoned campaigners Jason Johnson and Damien Peverill, who did not play in Essendon's six-goal loss to St Kilda on Friday night despite the club's long injury list.

The margin would have been far greater if not for the Dons' accuracy in front of goal. They kicked 14.3 from just 39 entries inside 50, compared to St Kilda's 18.15 from 56.

"Even when we went in we didn't get much fall of the ball stuff. When it hit the ground they swept it around. We didn't make too much out of nothing at the fall of the ball," Knights said.

The coach was disappointed with his team's first half which saw it trail by 44 points at the long break, describing their defensive pressure as 'very average'.

He said the Bombers' haphazard ball movement in the first half when it was forced too wide was more the product of St Kilda's defensive pressure rather than the absence of star forward Scott Lucas.

"I thought we just played within ourselves when we had the ball. Not so much around trying to win the ball but when we had the ball we played within ourselves, very stop-start type of football," he said.

"In the third quarter we shared the ball and got some overlap run and some good inside 50s. Unfortunately it took a half to come and the game was shot by then."