Essendon captain Matthew Lloyd is only a 50-50 chance of lining up against the Indigenous All Stars in Darwin this Friday night, despite completing a training session with the team at Marrara this evening. Lloyd suffered a slightly corked thigh during an intra-club practice match and selectors are weighing up whether to risk him in the exhibition game.

The match committee is keen to get some serious football into Lloyd who basically missed all of last season with a serious hamstring injury. The man himself said he remained hopeful of playing this weekend and said if it was the week leading up to a home and away game he would not be in any doubt.

""I will work it out with Sheeds and the medicos when we see how I pull up after training. I haven’t played for a while so that might come into it – we will see how I pull up,"" Lloyd said. ""We are in preparation for the NAB Cup in two weeks time but we have pride in our jumper just as they will so it will be a competitive game. The result is not the be all and end all but we haven’t won enough games in recent seasons and we need to get back into that habit.""

The Lloyd debate has today been overshadowed with news that the All Stars selectors have left out star Sydney duo Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin after Sydney demanded they only be used for seven and five minutes per quarter. Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin and Fremantle’s Jeff Farmer have also been withdrawn.

""We have decided we wanted to play a couple of young kids instead. To play for five minutes a quarter is not good enough so we went that way in fairness to the players, the clubs and the fans who pay to come and watch the game,"" All Stars’ coach Michael McLean said.

All Stars captain Andrew McLeod agreed with his coach.

""It is disappointing that the fans won’t get to see them play. I back the selectors and coach. If I was told I could only play five minutes I wouldn’t put my hand up to play. If you tolerate it you end up setting a precedent for the years ahead and clubs will release players based on them being able to play five minutes and that is not fair on the game, the concept and what it means,"" McLeod said.

Essendon trained well tonight and a number of first-year Bombers will get a taste of elite level football on Friday night. Patrick Ryder, Andrew Lovett and Nathan Lovett-Murray will train with the All Stars team tomorrow night.

Bomber coach Kevin Sheedy said his side will be playing to win the game.

""You want to play well every opportunity you get, particularly for a number of our players that didn’t have great seasons last year. You play to win, that is what our fans would expect and want,"" Sheedy said.