THE power stayed on at Altona but remained firmly off in the Doncaster offence as the Dragons went down to Essendon 5-0 on Wednesday night.

Unlike the previous midweek game, which finished in near darkness as the Altona stadium fell victim to a blackout, the lights functioned perfectly this time.

But the Doncaster offence didn't, and that cost the Dragons any chance of victory.  With only two hits for the game -- by Ben Utting and Brendan McDonald -- the Dragons were never in the hunt against solid pitching by Essendon starter Gareth Formisano and reliever Ross Hipke. 

To make matters worse, Essendon's batters had the happy knack of finding gaps whenever they made contact, scoring five runs in the first two innings and never looking in danger of giving up the lead.  The unlucky pitcher was Andrew Chesterton, who allowed three earned runs in four innings of work. Simon Fitzmaurice and Callum Lethborg held the Bombers scoreless after that, but the damage had already been done.

The loss was the third in a row for the Dragons. They hope to reverse that trend when they host Geelong in an important game at Deep Creek on Saturday.