Essendon has elected to play only 22 players and selection pressure will be at an all-time high as players try to secure their positions for the Bombers’ Round 1 match against Port Adelaide.
“We are going to reduce our players from 26 to 22 so the players can have a real good run and get a good feel as to what Round 1 is going to be like,” Hamilton said.
“We are excited by that because it means players should become much harder ahead of Round 1.”
Essendon will inject multiple big name inclusions into its line-up with Dustin Fletcher, Jobe Watson, Andrew Lovett and Jay Neagle all expected to return to the side.
“A few players are coming back into the side this week and will be looking to put a good performance on the board,” Hamilton said.
“It is going to be tight. We are only going with 22 players so it means there are going to be seven, eight or nine players that are going to miss out who played last week.
“It is good because it means there will be competitiveness for that spot for Round 1 so it is up to the guys who get into the side tomorrow night to make sure they play well.
“There will be three or four spots that are up for grabs ahead of Round 1 so our players who play tomorrow will have to earn those spots,"" Hamilton said.
“There are also a number of players coming back from injury who may be in contention for Round 1 but we would like to start narrowing it down and we want to make sure our players are playing well together and they are playing good game time and getting a feel for each other.”
Scott Lucas is one player expected to be given significant game time tomorrow afternoon in Bendigo following a reduced pre-season due to a knee injury.
“He is coming back from a fairly major injury so we expected that it would a pretty slow start for him, it wasn’t just going to happen for him,"" Hamilton said.
“We are just happy that he has been able to play a couple of games while making sure he gets a little bit more game time in each of those games.
