A quiet ripple of applause from a small group of Essendon faithful welcomed Dean Rioli back to Windy Hill this afternoon. The Bombers trained at Windy Hill for the first time this season and Rioli joined his teammates for the first time in more than two weeks having spent time on Melville Island working through some personal issues. Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy told the media that Rioli will not walk straight back into the senior side.

""Naturally he won't be coming straight back into the senior side. The group of players we have at the moment have been doing a pretty fair job,"" Sheedy said. ""We are all glad to have him back and looking forward to him playing football again.""

Sheedy said any player with personal issues would have been given the same time to work through them. ""That's what caring about your team is about. It is the start of the year and there is more press around than you can poke a stick out,"" Sheedy said. ""It makes you think about what could have been done with players in the past that might have led to them performing better.""

Sheedy said the team now wanted to focus on the weekend's Grand Final replay with Brisbane. ""People like Robert Walls accused us of taking our eye of the ball in Grand Final week so we want to concentrate on this weekend,"" he said. ""We want to play well and I think we have a fairly good side coming along and they no doubt have - they beat Hawthorn by more than 100 points so they will be high in confidence. Hopefully we won't get beaten by 100 points.""

Sheedy wouldn't be drawn on how long he might continue to coach for. ""You just don't know. I didn't think I would here as long as I have been and upset as many people as I have - including the media. Who knows?"" Sheedy said with a smile.