Josh Kennedy: West Coast Eagles constantly reminded they have beaten top 8 side

IT seems like such a long time ago that we played Essendon, with the AFL fixture giving us another decent break between games.

We will have a 10-day gap between games by the time we play North Melbourne.

That should be good for us as we aim to build some momentum in the second half of the year and push as high up the ladder as possible.

Against the Bombers, we were a little slow out of the blocks but we finished strongly and hopefully we carry that second-half performance forward into this week and deep into the season. It is well documented that Essendon are without a large portion of their senior squad, but they have been able to bring in some very experienced and high-achieving players to top up their list.

Combined with some exciting young players, we were not surprised they came out hard in the first quarter last Thursday night.

But we also thought that if we stayed committed to our game plan and kept working, we could get the job done.

In the end, that was how it unfolded and it was nice to bank the four points and then begin the recovery process for our next game.

It was also great to catch up with some of the players from the 2006 premiership team, who were honoured on the night, as they came together for their 10-year reunion.

Some of them I actually had the opportunity to play with, so it was fun seeing Michael Braun, Andrew Embley, Daniel Kerr and a few of the other boys.

Seeing how tight those guys are today, a decade after the success they achieved together, gave us a reminder of how special it would be to achieve something similar.

For now though, we will just focus on what we need to do against North.

We get reminded constantly that we haven’t beaten another team in the top eight and the only way to shut down that conversation is to beat a top-eight rival.

North Melbourne will be tough to beat, we know that, but we also know our best is good enough.

The Kangaroos were flying at the start of the season and while they have now lost a couple of games, they probably took the opportunity to enjoy a break and freshen up, like we did.