In a huge boost to the Bombers’ NAB Cup chances, veteran bookends, Matthew Lloyd and Dustin Fletcher, could both line-up in Essendon’s Round 1 opener against the Western Bulldogs in Darwin in sixteen days time.

Football operations manager, Paul Hamilton, said the duo had been training strongly and would play at least a few pre-season games. He said 31-year-old Lloyd had felt slight tightness in the hamstring before Christmas but is now fully fit while 34-year-old Fletcher has had an excellent pre-season.
 
“We believe anyone who has missed any substantial period of training won’t be ready for the first round of the NAB Cup, which will be a number of players, but a couple of seniors guys have done a fair bit so it’s likely we will see one or two of those fellas (Lloyd and Fletcher) in the side,” he said.

“With all these guys who have missed substantial periods of the pre-season it’s too high a risk to play them in Round 1 of the NAB Cup and you look towards Round 1 of the AFL.

“If we played those sorts of guys in the NAB Cup we would only be able to play them for a quarter so it wouldn’t be the way to go but, of course, we want to go up there (to Darwin) and perform well. The Darwin connection with Essendon is a long one so we want to go up and make sure we perform well but we aren’t going to put any individuals at risk.”

Hamilton said the hot Melbourne conditions are good for preparation for Darwin but admitted the record number of operations at the end of the 2008 would have an impact during the NAB Cup.

“We had our injury problems last year but the operations have been done as early as possible so by the start of the pre-season there were only a few guys in the rehab group,” he said.

“There will be an affect on a number of players during the NAB Cup but we are confident there is still plenty of time to get our players right for Round 1 of the AFL season which is important.”

Essendon play the Bulldogs on Friday, February 13 at TIO Stadium in Darwin.