Essendon coach James Hird says he still believes the Bombers have a right to contest this year's finals series.

The Bombers trained on Saturday in front of hundreds of supporters, who vocally emphasised their support for the embattled coach.

Despite speculation the Bombers' premiership points will be stripped in the coming weeks over the supplements scandal, Hird says the club still believes it is entitled to play into September.

"We're playing tomorrow, the next week, the next week and the next week, because we believe we've got a right to play in the finals," Hird said.

"We believe that so we're not doing all this training we've been doing over the last six months, we're not going out to risk our players' bodies by playing every weekend for no reason.

"We believe we've got a right to be there.

"The AFL has stated there's been no deal done and no pre-determined penalties."

Hird was asked if he felt more comfortable about the club's position after his legal team viewed the interim ASADA report.

He said nothing had changed.

"I think we've felt very comfortable about our position all the way along, and we still do," he said.

Hird was more interested in talking about Sunday's clash with West Coast, which comes after heavy losses to Hawthorn and Collingwood, than the ASADA situation.

He said he preferred not to respond when asked if he had been told charges would be laid by the AFL.

He also said he couldn't answer a question about where the matter was bound to end up, saying it was "beyond where my decision is at".

"My decision is around how we play tomorrow and how we beat West Coast, but where this ends up I think is a matter for the club and the AFL and how they sort that out," he said.

He also declined to comment on the process set out by the AFL in dealing with the matter.

Hird did speak of a desire for the matter to be finished "as quickly as possible" but emphasised the Bombers wanted the "right outcome" as well.

Dustin Fletcher will play his 378th game on Sunday, which will draw him level with Simon Madden as the most capped Bomber as well as elevate him to equal fourth on the all-time games record list behind Michael Tuck (426), Kevin Bartlett (403) and Robert Harvey (383).

Hird said it was a "great effort" and the players had spoken a lot about the milestone this week and "what Fletch means to our club".

The Bombers are coming off their worst two losses for the year, which runs parallel with how they've faded late in the past two seasons - especially in 2012, when they lost their last seven games.

"We're definitely a better team than we were last year and the year before," Hird said.

"We're confident that we've had a couple of weeks where we haven't played the footy we want to play and we've come up against really good opposition.

"We're confident tomorrow we can get out game back on track and play some good football and finish off the rest of the year."
He also said "we'll wait and see tomorrow" when asked if the off-field saga had affected the players in the past fortnight.