Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy is under no illusion that his improving team will need to lift another notch if they are to beat Fremantle at The Dome this Sunday. But either way Sheedy is expecting an outstanding game of football against a very physical Fremantle and he hopes it will be played in front of a fanatical Essendon crowd.

The other news to come out of today's media conference was that Adam Ramanauskas could return to football inside the next month. His training has been solid in recent weeks and having recovered from a mild hamstring strain he continues to make good progress. He should return to full training within a week and his progress will then be assessed as to when he plays his first competitive game.

But today Sheedy was pre-occupied with what shapes as one of the matches of the Round at Telstra Dome this weekend.

""I think it will be a pretty good game. We obviously started the year well with the win last week but Fremantle have a pretty good list of players,"" Sheedy explained to the media today. ""They have got 16 or 17 100 game players and then obviously adding Tarrant and Solomon to that, they have a great mix of experience so we cannot take them on lightly.""

Essendon fans will still be pinching themselves after their side knocked over the highly-fancied Adelaide crows on their own patch last weekend. The win was capped off further during the week when their key defender Patrick Ryder won the Rising Star nomination.

""It was good to see Paddy play well - he has a lot of talent that young boy and he has only just turned 19. He can play forward, back or in the middle and we hope he will be a good player for this club for a long time,"" Sheedy said.

Despite the win, Sheedy said changes could be made at the selection table.

""We might consider two changes and maybe three because players like (Chris) Heffernan, (Ricky) Dyson and (Jason) Laycock are ready to play and played well for Bendigo last weekend,"" he said.

""Then we obviously still have our first draft choice (Scott) Gumbleton who hasn’t played yet and young Jay Neagle who kicked five last week for Bendigo and Johns who kicked four.

With team selection yet to be announced, Sheedy hopes that finding someone to line up on Aaron Sandilands will be his only dilemma this week.

""I have no idea who will match up on him. He is just so quick and agile for someone of his size so I am hoping he gets a bug,"" he joked.

And just who will line-up on former Essendon player Dean Solomon remains a mystery but Sheedy knows one thing for sure. ""It definitely won’t be me I can tell you that. Last time we made contact I didn’t pull up so good,"" he said referring the the shoulder reconstruction he required after Solomon accidentally ran into him at training last year.

""I do know he will want to do very well because he has a lot of pride. He kicked and created four or five goals last weekend. perhaps I have been playing him out of position all these years.""