Essendon Coach John Worsfold may look at resting some of his younger players throughout the remaining games in an attempt to maximise their output in the games they do play.

The Bombers fielded seven players in their first or second AFL season against Adelaide on Sunday.

Michael Hartley (15 games this year), Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti (17 games), Darcy Parish (17 games) and Kyle Langford (15 games) have enjoyed heavy workloads, while Aaron Francis (two games), Jayden Laverde (five games) and Conor McKenna (eight games) have come into the line-up late in the season.

Essendon rested James Kelly against the Crows and Craig Bird a week earlier against Brisbane. 

Although both experienced premiership players, Worsfold was mindful of their limited pre-seasons and the coaching staff will continue to monitor players’ workloads in the remaining games.

“There is no doubt some of the young players that have had a massive workload this year are feeling the pinch…and some of the players that came in with no pre-season are really feeling the pinch,” he said.

“Managing them so they can learn and get more ground time throughout the remaining rounds, which may mean them missing a game, so they get three games in where they’ve got some spring in their step as opposed to slowly dropping off the perch in terms of energy.

“We’ve got good teams coming up to play against and learning with good match ups, players are playing on really good players and learning how far they’re off the mark in terms of getting to that level.”

Worsfold said prior to the season commencing he expected to rely more heavily on the players signed in the wake of January’s Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling.

Matt Dea (17 games) and Kelly (16 games) have become regulars, but most of the other additional recruits have battled injury.

“I thought out of our short term contracted guys, we’d be leaning on nearly seven or eight of those nearly every week,” Worsfold said.

“I think we’ve averaged maybe three a week through injuries so the massive workload has gone back onto a lot of young players to play alongside a lot of other young players week in, week out.

“The leadership of Brendon Goddard can’t be underestimated.

“His desire to help the players learn and get better has been outstanding.”

Throughout Sunday’s match Adelaide was more efficient with the ball (78% to Essendon’s 72%) and more efficient going inside 50 (54% to Essendon’s 51%).

The Crows were also able to record more intercept possessions (76-62)

“Fatigue does lead to more errors – that’s in any sport,” he said.

“As you get more tired your decision making isn’t as sharp.

“Young players, especially at this time of the year, fatigue more than the elite experienced players.  So you do see younger players have a drop off or make more errors, often at this stage of the year.

“We are young and we’re not that experienced in terms of games played so we do make errors and we make a lot more than most teams.”