Essendon’s ten returning players will begin their official pre-season training a little earlier than normal.

The group will start their build up for next season on November 7 alongside the Club’s younger players.

“They’ve received programs from our strength and conditioning group,” Essendon’s General Manger of Football Operations Rob Kerr said.

“Effectively the whole group is (currently) on leave but over the leave period they get running programs and weights programs and they’re in the same boat as the rest of the group.

“The slight change with the returning players is that they’ll come back and train with the younger players when they return on November 7.

“That will just give them a bit of a head start before the remainder of the group comes back around the 14^th.”

Jobe Watson became the tenth player to announce his intention to return at the end of last week.

Kerr said the retention of the All-Australian midfielder allows the Club to bolster other areas of the ground throughout the upcoming trade and free-agency period.

“Particularly having Jobe come back that sort of means we’re pretty comfortable in terms of the inside and the midfield set up,” Kerr said.

“It maybe means that one or two players we might have looked at otherwise, would not be on the agenda anymore.

“It does mean that we’re pretty tight for spots – we’ve got to go through the trade period and see what comes out of that.

“There will be a few players that will have some uncertainty about where their future is until we get through to the end of that trade period.

“It’s a difficult time for players, but it’s the way the industry works this time of year.”

Despite the unique circumstances surrounding Essendon’s 2016 season, the Bombers won two of their last three matches.

Orazio Fantasia and Darcy Parish were nominated for the AFL’s Rishing Star award, with Parish finishing fourth.

Zach Merrett polled 19 votes in the Brownlow Medal and was named Vice-Captain in the AFL Players’ Association 22Under22 team - a side that also included Joe Daniher.

“This year I feel like as a football club we’ve operated in a pretty highly functioning and effective way,” Kerr said.

“John has brought his template of what he sees the coaching model to look like and how he coaches and he really coaches very strongly to the culture and the values – the players come up with those but he drives those really hard.

“I think the players have appreciated having that bit of ownership and being held accountable.

“We’re also very fortunate that we’ve got a group of young players who are really driving the club forward in terms of the standards at training and off the field.

“It is great that the group is buying into that.”