Essendon coach Ben Rutten wants the “best version” of Jake Stringer playing for the Bombers after ruling him out of the team for the round 1 clash with Geelong on Saturday.
Stringer, Essendon’s leading goalkicker in 2021, has been hampered throughout the summer by a groin injury and missed both of the Bombers’ pre-season games.
The 27-year-old had been confident of walking into round 1 without any pre-season hit-outs, but Rutten said on Thursday that the club would take a cautious approach to his recovery.
“He’s going pretty well. Medically, he’s back fit, (but) he hasn’t done a huge amount of work recently,” Rutten said.
“The most important thing with Jake is we set him up to have a 25-game season. That’s really the priority to make sure we are going the best for Jake long term.
“We want the best version of Jake and to build him up to succeed throughout the whole season.
“I don’t want to get too caught up in the timeline, it’s about how Jake is going and progressing through. He’s not going to be too far away.”
Rutten confirmed that Dylan Shiel would face the Cats at the MCG despite missing the final pre-season clash to attend a leadership conference, and Nick Martin, who joined the Bombers last month via the pre-season supplemental period, was “in the mix” to make his AFL debut.
Aaron Francis is battling a knee issue and Rutten said he needed to train and pull up well to face the Cats.
The Bombers have turned to untried forward Kaine Baldwin to help address forward line issues, with Harrison Jones and livewire small forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti also missing.
Baldwin, 19, was also picked up in the pre-season after an ACL injury impacted his draft year, the second time he had suffered a serious knee injury and had worked hard to earn his selection.
“It’s a really exciting for us and him. He’s coming back from two knee reconstructions,” Rutten said.
“He’s one of those guys who sets up really well. He competes really hard, he’s got a pretty well-rounded game to him.
“We understand he’s a first-game player but he competes and is committed to team aspects. He’s really endeared himself toxjmtzyw his teammates. Three or four months ago it was a long stretch for him but the amount of work he has done over the summer is impressive.”
Rutten dismissed concern over his team’s ability to post a winning score, having kicked more than 80 points 16 times in their run to the 2021 finals.
“It was probably a question mark this time last year as well and we were one of the better scoring teams last season,” he said.
“We want to be a team that has an even spread, it’s not just going to be our forwards or our key forwards.
“We think we have some really strong firepower. I expect to see us be able to hit the scoreboard in a variety of ways.”
