A crowd of 70,000 plus will greet Shaun McKernan as he returns to the senior team for the first time since our round seven clash against North Melbourne.

The in form Hawthorn side will come out all guns blazing, with their physicality being a major talking point in the AFL over the last few weeks.

However, this is not something that McKernan is phased by, believing it's more important to focus on the way Essendon plays.

“We won’t worry about what they’re going to do,” McKernan said.

“If they want to play that unsociable football that everyone has talked about they can.

“We’ll just go about our brand of footy and that’ll take care of itself.” .

McKernan is confident that the boys are ready to break the recent form slump that has seen the Bombers slip to 13^th place with four wins and seven losses.

He said this week’s game is a big chance to resurrect the club’s finals hopes.

“If we win this week and then win a couple more games, we can go to seven and seven,” McKernan said.

“There’s no reason we can’t play finals.”

Essendon were able to pull-off a hard fought win the last time these two sides met in round two, edging out the Hawks by two-points in the dying stages.

Again going into the game as the underdog McKernan sees no reason why Essendon can’t get over the line again, reassuring fans that they will see a competitive, fierce game of footy.

“Everybody would have written us off in round two as well, so there’s nothing different,” McKernan said.

“We’re not just going there to turn up and get beaten.

“We’re heading there to win.”

Essendon take on Hawthorn this Saturday 27 June at 1.40pm. You can find all the match details here.