Courageous Bomber defender, Henry Slattery, will return to the field this Saturday night against Brisbane after receiving a sickening accidental knee to the head from Brendan Fevola.

Essendon assistant coach, Ashley Prescott, said the 22-year-old South Australian is fit and ready to play his 45th game for the club.

“It’s going to be enormous to have him back,” Prescott said.

“I think he has really set a standard for the whole group and I think that was probably demonstrated again against Fremantle with Adam McPhee’s attack on the football.

“Little things like that are actually such big things and can really catapult a team’s season and set-up a season and I think the example that Henry set in filling up some space to help a team-mate on Fevola was inspirational.”

Slattery missed the clash against Fremantle but Prescott said he has shown no ill effects from the clash.

“He would have played if we didn’t have a bye last week so there are no problems what-so-ever,” Prescott said.

“He was given the standard rest after a concussion but it has worked out quite well with the bye. He has trained well and is ready to go and play a role in the team.

“He is a critical part of the team, he’s been doing some fantastic defensive jobs down back and certainly Brisbane has got some good small forwards, as well as key forwards, and we need players like Henry to be on their game to beat them on Saturday.”

In a week that has seen young-gun, David Myers, ruled out for a month with a sore foot and Courtney Johns suffer a season ending knee injury there has been good news with Dustin Fletcher fit to play.
 
Fletcher suffered a suspected broken hand in the second quarter of the Fremantle clash and did not return to the field. However, it turns out the lanky veteran does not have any serious bone damage and just has bad bruising.
 
“I think it was mid-diagnosed at the time but it didn’t really hurt us and to have Fletcher on the bench against Fremantle and still win the game was good for us,” Prescott said.

“Brown and Bradshaw are great players for Brisbane and Fletcher is one of the guys – probably along with Ryder and Lovett-Murray – that we will look at to keep them down.”