Dyson Heppell is adamant he will play in the opening month of the season despite being ruled out of round one due to his foot injury.
The Essendon skipper had surgery at the end of last season on the foot issue that plagued his second half of the year, and recently had further minor surgery after soreness had arisen.
He has not yet joined full training and has been limited to restricted drills with the rehabilitation group in recent weeks.
The midfielder will miss Essendon's first game against Fremantle at Marvel Stadium, and although the club is unsure when he will be available, the Bombers are confident he will be ready to play within the first block of games.
"I'm progressing slowly at the moment. The recovery from it has been a bit slower than we would've liked, but it's improving each day so we're playing it by ear," he told AFL.com.au.
"We're not putting any timeframe on when I'll be back, but hopefully that will be soon.
"The important part of the year of the year is the back end and making sure I'm fit and healthy and not grinding through a year of injury.
"I'm certainly optimistic about [playing in the first month], for sure."
The 27-year-old said it would take some weeks of full training before he was ready to step up at senior level.
"We're really just going to progress it from when I'm running pain-free and then build off-line and then things like that. There's going to be a few boxes we tick until I crack straight into it," he said.
The Bombers won both of their Marsh Community Series games despite a summer that included 17 surgeries to players.
Heppell remained buoyed about their hopes in 2020, with the club venturing into an historic coaching handover from John Worsfold to Ben Rutten.
"I think we've had a really strong pre-season not only in on-field improvement, but culturally as well. It's been a really enjoyable environment to be around," he said.
"We're seeing some great development from a middle-tier core of players and that's where a lot of our improvement's going to come from."
