""He is one of the hardest players I have seen at the club. He has won a best and fairest award and been runner up in another. He is also a kid that has barracked for Essendon all his life,"" Sheedy said.
Johnson will be joined on the ground tonight by close friend Adam Ramanauskas who has spent the past nine weeks on the sidelines. ""It is great to see him back in the side. He will be a little bit underdone to be quiet honest but with four on the bench and the number of rotations we do, often a couple of players will only spend 30 or 40 minutes on the ground. I wanted to get him into the side, get him out there and give him confidence going into and coming out of the week's break,"" Sheedy said.
""It was an annoying thing for Adam to have to go through and it was disappointing for the whole club that he missed so many games. On a health side it is fantastic that there was no cancerous growth found.""
Sheedy said he didn't expect the return of Ramanauskas would have any emotional impact on the side, similar to that Jason McCartney inspired last weekend. ""Last week was a sensational and for Jason to say at the end that his body was telling him to give it away after making a genuine contribution to the win - well you can't beat that. It was the most dramatic gave I have seen in decades and you are talking to a coach that has lost two preliminary finals by one point,' Sheedy said.
On the eve of tonight's game, Sheedy re-iterated that just two weeks ago he didn't feel there was any significant problem with the surface of The Dome. ""Perhaps it is a little hard but the grounds in Perth and Brisbane have been the same at times. You have to be pretty careful about how you land in that centre wicket area at the Gabba,"" he said.
