Matthew Knights says his young backline will be placed under plenty of pressure this week as they take on Hawthorn's powerhouse forward line.
After losing veteran defender Dustin Fletcher last week to injury, and with Patrick Ryder likely to again fill the void left by David Hille in the ruck, Knights admits his backline could be light on experience but says he has faith his young defenders can rise to the occasion.
“Guys like Tayte Pears and David Myers will have the ride of their life but we can only support them,” he said.

“Roughead and Franklin are brilliant players and performed on the big stage all last year and won the premiership, it will be a big test for our boys.

“Last week Pears did well on Bradshaw, despite him getting a couple of late goals. Overall I think he held him very well. We took Tayte as a 17-year-old, now he is an 18-year-old playing on the likes of Bradshaw, which is a pretty big effort on his behalf.

“Cale Hooker went back onto Jonathan Brown at one stage, when Brown was already warmed up; it wasn’t a great introduction for him. But I think athletically he stayed around the action, even if Brown did kick a couple on him. 

“Cale and Tayte are both budding young defenders, together with Michael Hurley, Darcy Daniher and Myers. We are going to be strong in that area in time, at the moment though we need to get games into them, with games comes learning and playing on good opponents.

“I’m really keen to give Hooker and Pears another opportunity this week.""

Knights also told the media that Daniher and Hurley are expected to return from injuries this week but will line up in Essendon’s VFL side.

“We think it’s important for both those guys to get some match conditioning before they come back into the side and play senior football,” he said.
The coach flagged the prospect of bringing young forwards Jay Neagle or John Williams in to replace Scott Lucas who will either rest or play with Bendigo this weekend.
""Young players, if I bring them into the team now, I will tend to give them a few weeks, two or three weeks to settle in,"" he said.