Essendon is coming off one of its worst defeats in the past decade, but Kevin Sheedy is confident his team can change its fortune this weekend and restore some pride. ""It’s not impossible for us to win this week. The boys played St. Kilda, three to four weeks ago. We know where they are at and exactly what their performances are and we will probably make a few changes that will freshen the team up,"" Sheedy said.

""It was a bad loss. We seem to have one every five or six years. We put one on the table and make a mess of ourselves and have to sort of come back from there. It’s a part of footy unfortunately. Nearly every team has a bad loss in a year. Hopefully we have got our out of the road.

""When you lose a game like that then you have got to come back to somewhere near the best of your ability. You don’t turn character on and off like that all the time,"" said Sheedy as his players worked through their session at The Dome.

The Bombers' coaching panel will be ringing the changes for its Round 2 match. The team will be strengthened with the return of at least four experienced players. Sheedy said that Mark McVeigh, Dean Solomon, Dustin Fletcher and Mark Johnson are all likely to come into the side but ruled out key defender Sean Wellman. Sheedy also said that veteran Mark Mercuri is a chance to come into the team after missing the past three weeks with a hamstring injury.

Despite making several changes to the line-up, Sheedy said the team has followed its normal training timetable this week. ""We haven't done all that much different this week. We will have a light week because it is a six-day turn around. We won’t do a hell of a lot except go back to the basics,"" Sheedy said.