James Kelly is back in the Essendon side for the match against Port Adelaide on Saturday night.

The 300 game player missed last week because of groin soreness but he has now recovered and has been called into the side at the expense of Brent Stanton.

“He has great experience but he is just in really good form,” Essendon Coach John Worsfold said.

“He understands the way we want to play and his leadership has been great out there as well.”

The Bombers will be looking to rebound after narrow losses to top four contenders, GWS and Richmond, in the last fortnight.

Worsfold said the side could take confidence from the way they have performed against the leading teams.

“We lost (to GWS) but it was a really tight, tough contest against a very good team,” he said.

“We learnt a lot out of it and we know there are areas in our game we want to get better at and we’re working really hard on that.

“We’re seeing it come together against good teams but we don’t want to keep ‘just’ losing but it will happen for us if we stick at it.”

A win against the Power would have the Bombers knocking on the door of the top eight ahead of their mid-season bye next week.

“It keeps us right in the mix if we can get over the top of Port, so it’s a big game, home crowd at Etihad Stadium, a lot of noise and we want to really take it up to Port,” Worsfold said.

“They are a really good team, they’ve been good form all year so it’s a wonderful test for us to step up and take them on and this time get the four points.”

Essendon v Port Adelaide

Saturday June 10

Etihad Stadium

7:25pm

In: James Kelly

Out: Brent Stanton

B: Martin Gleeson, Michael Hurley, Mark Baguley

HB: Brendon Goddard, Michael Hartley, Andrew McGrath

C: Conor McKenna, Zach Merrett, Travis Colyer

HF: James Stewart, Cale Hooker, Orazio Fantasia

F: Dyson Heppell, Joe Daniher, David Myers

R: Tom Bellchambers, Jobe Watson, David Zaharakis

I: Ben Howlett, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, James Kelly, Josh Green

E: Craig Bird, Brent Stanton, Kyle Langford