Experienced pair Paul Chapman and Brendon Goddard will provide important guidance to a young Essendon playing group heading into the club’s first finals campaign for three seasons.
Chapman will line up in his eighth consecutive finals series after playing in the last seven straight with Geelong.
The Norm Smith medalist said it was vital the side did not put too much pressure on themselves heading into Saturday night’s clash.
“You have to try and envision it as just another game to make sure you don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” Chapman said.
“The one thing that does change is that it becomes a more one on one type of contested game and that is the way we have been trained up all year so hopefully it will hold us in good stead.
“We are definitely looking forward to it so hopefully we can put our best foot forward.”
Goddard has played on the last day in September on two occasions for the Saints as part of their successful era earlier this decade.
“It is important for the footy club and our fans that we are back in September and playing successful finals footy, so to win a final,”
“There is no real pressure internally about this week, we talked about the importance of the game and how we want the game to look.
“For me it is important for the players to experience playing in finals and big finals.
“We all talk about it and you can see it that finals footy is a completely different beast.
“People talk about the real season starting at the start of September and we talk about that a fair bit because it is a different beast.
“It will be good for the guys to experience that and go through the experience of winning and losing finals.”
Chapman said he was confident the side was in a good position to put in a strong performance against North Melbourne.
“To win a final would be a successful year for us but obviously we want to go a lot better then that.”
“For young players to get that finals experience and intensity will be massive but to win one would be good to get ready for the rise in level in a second week of finals."
Coach Mark Thompson, who brings his own finals experience to the group, is confident the pair will be able to impart their knowledge onto the playing group.
“We don’t want to rely on looking towards him (Chappy) we want him just to play his part and we want everyone to step up,” Thompson said.
“Certainly in his past he has played a lot of finals of which he can share some of his experiences with and he has usually played pretty well.
“I have rarely seen Chappy play too many bad games, probably some of his worst games he has played have been at Essendon this year early in season but generally he plays pretty steady.”
