"He's got a lot of upper-body strength, he's got leg speed, he can catch the ball overhead. We hope he's going to develop into an exciting running player who can break the lines for us."

"The danger is that you underestimate their players and we certainly won't be doing that. We saw their younger players play when they were recruited and we know who they are. We actually spent some time this morning making sure that every one of our players understood the new Essendon players' strengths and weaknesses."

"If we bring in a defender, someone like Peter Burgoyne can play in the midfield and if we select a forward, David Rodan could go in the midfield. It really doesn't mean we have to find an exact replacement for Chad Cornes and there certainly aren't any of those on our list anyway."

"I'm sure Matthew Knights is still drilling into them their pattern of play and like all sides that bring young players in, they're going to be so enthusiastic. They'll want to prove themselves and stay in the side for the whole year, so it's going to be a difficult battle for us and on we really have to hit head on."

"Trav will win a Brownlow before he's finished footy. That's how much we rate him down at the club. I don't want to put too much pressure on him, but he's a gun. His fitness is unbelievable and his skills are getting better every week."

"Chad is a massive loss. But we have the belief in the rest of our group. Whoever comes in to replace him, we have trust in him. He will do the job. We do hold Chad in high regard but we also have players on our list who can do a similar type of role."

"It's only two games. We knew after losing four last year that we had to stick with (our gameplan). That's what we've done too this year."