GIANTS coach Adam Kingsley has told his side they must "sharpen up" after a loss to Essendon on Saturday marked their third defeat in four games.

The GIANTS were in good touch early before being well beaten by the Bombers, who ran out 20-point winners at Marvel Stadium.

After starting the season with five straight wins, the GIANTS have lost three of their past four, going down to Carlton, Sydney and Essendon.

And Kingsley is desperate to see improvement from his team, which fell to fifth on the ladder with a 6-3 win-loss record.

"I just don't think we're playing our best footy and we've been beaten by three pretty good teams," he said.

"Each of those teams you'd expect to finish in the top four to top six, I would imagine. What the feedback to us has been is that we're not quite at that level right at this moment and that's ok.

"But we do need to sharpen up our game and make sure that by the end of the season we're playing our best footy. Our challenge between now and then is to be able to generate enough wins to actually qualify for finals, that's our first objective, and based on our last month of footy we're going to fail to do that so we need to address a couple of things.

"I think today we were beaten by a more desperate team, last week we were beaten by a more desperate team so we need to tidy up some of that, we need to tidy up some of our fundamentals."

The GIANTS kicked four goals to one in the opening term against the Bombers, but had no answers when Essendon ramped up the pressure.

Kingsley gave credit to Essendon, which extended its unbeaten run to five games and spoiled GIANTS veteran Callan Ward's 300th game.

"We did look sharp early. I was happy with our start. Essendon regrouped at quarter-time, raised their pressure and we didn't cope with it," he said.

"I thought after quarter-time we probably missed some opportunities under their perceived pressure, their pressure definitely created a lot of opportunities for them. It was very good.

"I think they were 2.0 after quarter-time which is an outstanding pressure number and then they were far better than us in the contest. Their one on ones or two on two, it just felt like they had an advantage. Either it was their follow-up work where they were able to win it or the next man in.

"We weren't able to rectify that really at all after quarter-time."