It takes mental toughness to win tight games of football and Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy felt his players fell down in that area on a couple of occasions in 2003. In fact he believes it cost the team a top-four finish. The player’s recently spent a week training at Cann River. It was hard, it was rugged and it was deliberate. “We wanted to get the players tempers and aggression up to find out what they are like under pressure. You need to find that out and sometimes it is good to know before the start of the season. Last year we felt we lost a couple of games that we shouldn't have lost. So we have to make sure we handle those situations a lot better,"" Sheedy said.

The Bomber coach also said the camp was beneficial in searching for potential leaders at the club. ""You couldn't get any better leaders than Hird and Lloyd, but we have to look for our next development / leadership group. Not only just for leadership but also to develop people that will help develop Essendon.""

Although the camp didn't involve any football related activities such as skills work, Sheedy said the Cann River experience was an opportunity for the players to learn skills in different areas. ""In many ways the camp was a situation that gave us an opportunity to mentally develop our players. We are a very young side and some of the young players that have come into the club would have never done anything like this and either would most of the senior players,"" the four-time premiership coach said. ""I was very, very impressed with the young players and how they handled themselves. We know how tough it was for our normal 'run of the mill' professional player, but for a player that has been here for only a week and for the three new recruits - Alvey, Allan and Murphy - it was a fantastic effort.""

Always the eternal optimist, Sheedy is excited about next season and predicted big things from some of his younger players. ""We were happy with Ben Haynes last year - he played quite well for us when he came off the rookie list. We will look at Courtney Johns and see if he can or can't play. When you take rookies with perhaps injuries that take a year to mend we are hoping that he will get through this season,"" Sheedy said.

Essendon drafted four new players at the recent National Draft - Kepler Bradley from West Perth, Brent Stanton from Northern Knights, Jay Nash from Central Districts and Ricky Dyson from Northern Knights - but at this stage Sheedy doesn't expect any of them to be a certain starter in the senior team. ""I don't think any of our draft choices would walk into a senior berth - we have to make sure the players earn it. This time of year you are really looking at the guys who put in and I have been pretty impressed with the young kids already from what I have seen.""

New assistant coach Dean Wallis is already in the thick of the coaching action. Sheedy said he has got the former St.Kilda assistant coach involved in pre-season training to help with his development before the start of the season.""We like to get coaches here and develop them and they either stay here or move on. It is a great opportunity for Dean Wallis to get out there and coach some of his ex-teammates.""