ESSENDON youngster Tom Bellchambers is still expected to miss six weeks despite an MRI scan clearing the ruckman of any serious damage.

The 19-year-old hobbled from the field during the third quarter of his team’s loss to Geelong on Sunday and the Bombers fans feared the worst – especially given they had already lost star big man David Hille to a season-ending knee injury this year.

But on Monday Essendon learned that Bellchambers had only suffered bruising to a bone and minor ligament damage.

“The MRI result is quite good news because Tom won't require an operation – he will rest his knee for the next few weeks and undergo rehabilitation,” Essendon’s football operations manager, Paul Hamilton said.

“We’re very pleased that Tom hasn't done any serious cartilage or ligament damage and he will be available for most of the second half of the season.”

The youngster’s injury will leave greater responsibility on youngster Paddy Ryder.

While Bellchambers will be absent in coming weeks, teammate Adam McPhee believes the return of some mature-bodied Bombers should help the club’s cause in coming weeks – especially some who had performed well at VFL level at the weekend.

“[Brent] Prismall went really well again, and so did 'Welshy' (Andrew Welsh) back in his first game, so they might be two players that we can add back into our side this week,” McPhee said from Windy Hill on Monday morning.

“We’ll just see what the match committee thinks and whether they’ve got the match fitness to come straight back in and play senior footy.”

While the Bendigo Bombers were thumped at the weekend, Prismall gathered 30 possessions while Welsh – playing his first game back since dislocating his ankle – also got through the match unscathed.

Essendon was licking its wounds from its clash with the Cats on Monday morning and McPhee admitted his team “didn’t play well” when put to the test by Geelong – with a slow start again proving the undoing of Matthew Knights’ men.

“We really need to work on (our starts), whether it’s out warm-up or something that we’re doing during the week, so we can rectify it,” McPhee said.

“We certainly can’t give head starts to teams like Geelong, or even other teams for that matter, because then you’re just going to be just chasing for the rest of the day.”

The versatile Bomber said his side would try to take whatever positives it could from the clash before moving on to what shapes as a pivotal month in the club’s season.

With the Bombers sitting at 5-5 after 10 rounds, they face very winnable matches against Adelaide and Melbourne – both at Docklands – and two victories could set up their season for a run at September.

“We spoke about our month ahead … and this [week] is one of those games of the month. Hopefully we can get over Adelaide and then have that break and move into the second half of the year,” he said.