A resolution between Essendon and the AFL is likely to be reached on Friday to ensure the club has enough players to field a team in the opening rounds of the NAB Challenge.
 
With approximately 18 players still at Essendon provisionally suspended by ASADA, the club this week said it could need up to 20 top-up players to be able to play against St Kilda on March 7.
 
On Friday morning, the AFL's football operations boss Mark Evans said the League expected to be able to outline the process later in the day, but that the game is set to go ahead.
 
"I would hope that we would have some more information as today progresses," Evans said.
 
"We have taken some time to work with Essendon out of respect for the position that the players are in and we've been quite concerned about their well-being in all of this.
 
"I should say that we're not expecting any changes to the fixture, the match is scheduled to go and it really is about working out how best that can take place."
 
The most likely scenario is that the Bombers will need to find players from state leagues to fill their squad while the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal considers its verdict for the 34 current and former Essendon players handed infraction notices.
 
There is a precedent of top-up players being used by an AFL club, when Hawthorn called on seven Box Hill Hawks players to feature in a NAB Challenge game in 2009.
 
Evans was the Hawks' football manager at the time. "It created great opportunity out of that, and the younger listed players out of that game, some of them have gone on to be premiership players," Evans said.
 
"Seven of the non-listed players who played in that match, four of them got picked up by other clubs and [two] of them are still playing. There can be some good news come out of this.
 
"They're the sorts of things we'd like to work through to make sure that we can put this match on and put it on well."
 
Essendon football manager Rob Kerr outlined the club's issues this week and the problems associated with using so many top-up players for the pre-season clashes.
 
"By our estimations … we're thinking we'd probably have to find in the vicinity of 15 to 20 players to be able to compete," Kerr told the club's website.

"We've all got to recognise that these (top-up) players haven't done an AFL pre-season … they are not at the level of the preparation and readiness that you would expect an AFL player to be.

"You quite simply couldn't expect those players to play the normal number of game time - it would be putting them at risk of injury and it wouldn't be fair."