The Kangaroos have given Essendon a lesson in attacking football during their 22-point win in Friday night's AFL round seven opener at Telstra Dome.

The Roos' strong-marking forwards Leigh Brown (four goals) and Aaron Edwards (two) prospered from teammates banging the ball in long and quickly, while Shannon Grant also booted three majors in the 18.9 (117) to 13.17 (95) win.

Essendon, whose build-up into attack was so often based on short kicks across the flanks, were also made to pay for wasteful finishing, especially in the first term when they managed 2.9 despite controlling much of the play.

The Kangaroos seized on that generosity to notch a fourth-straight victory and extend their winning run over the Bombers to six, the club's best streak against the Dons.

However, the win came at a cost, with skillful midfielder Daniel Wells suffering a knee injury during the second quarter that prevented him from playing any further part in the match.

Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley said Wells had suffered a slight tear of his medial ligament, which would sideline him for between four and six games.

His injury continued a run for the Roos in recent games, where they have been left a player short early on.

"For the last three weeks we've been a man down for most of the game and that puts extra burden on other players," Laidley said.

"So for them to stand up and do as well as they did tonight was very good."

Despite his players' effort, Laidley was not completely happy with the performance as they failed to play the game on their terms.

"It's been a tough couple of weeks, we've played three games in 13 days and I just thought we weren't as sharp as we have been," he said.

"Perhaps we did get let off the hook early but we lost the first three games because of our inability to finish. That's footy."

Even with Wells off, it was the Kangaroos who boasted most of the spark, with Daniel Harris brilliant in the centre, Hamish McIntosh again impressive in the ruck and Brent Harvey and Jesse Smith damaging with their runs.

The Kangaroos' relentless attacking meant the Essendon defence could never relax and Brown, Edwards, Drew Petrie and David Hale all popped up to grab strong marks and land big goals.

Scott Lucas worked hard for five goals for Essendon, but was the Bombers' only constant threat inside 50 metres and he too suffered from goal kicking yips, notably in the last term when he could have cut the margin to 17 points with enough time for the Dons to challenge.

Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, whose side has now lost three games in succession, said the Bombers had played better than in recent games.

"We got the ball inside our 50 more often than we had previously, but the Kangaroos have been in very good form and we let them get away in the third quarter unfortunately," he said.

Sheedy also rued the missed shots early in the match.

"Misses always hurt later in the game ... we had some simple goals we should have got."

James Hird was good throughout for the Bombers and well supported by Mark Johnson and David Hille, who broke even with McIntosh early but could not nullify the in-form big man.

The Bombers should regain skipper Matthew Lloyd in round eight against the Brisbane Lions and he should make a huge difference to the forward line.

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