ESSENDON assistant coach Mark Thompson might have described Sunday's meeting with North Melbourne as the Bombers' 'grand final', but James Hird was reluctant to say the club's finals hopes hinge on the result.
The Bombers have lost four of their last five games while North is in strong form, winning seven of its last eight.
The run has seen the Kangaroos leapfrog the Bombers into seventh position, while the Bombers cling to eighth spot by percentage alone.
Hird said he hoped the club had more games after this one to press its finals claims, but understood its significance.
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"If we want to make the finals then it's a really important game to win and play well in," he said on Thursday.
"Last week I think we certainly got our form back in terms of the guys doing what we wanted them to do. We'll go into the game with a fair bit of confidence that we can play the way we want to play."
Hird has reason to be more confident, and not only because of last week's fighting performance against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.
Dustin Fletcher, Stewart Crameri, Michael Hibberd, Angus Monfries all look certain to return from injury against the Kangaroos, while Patrick Ryder and Brent Stanton could also be in contention.
Ryder and Stanton were unsighted during the early stages of Essendon's training session at Etihad Stadium, and Hird admitted that six changes might be too many in one week.
"We need to weigh up after training today who stays in and who doesn't stay in, and we need to start getting a pretty ruthless team out there that wants to win and needs to win," Hird said.
The Kangaroos have scored more than 100 points in all bar one of their last seven games, while the Bombers have conceded on average 125 points a game in the last five rounds.
Hird knows he needs to stop the Roos' run if his side is a chance.
"They're a terrific team and Brad Scott has done a really good job in building a very competitive outfit," Hird said.
"They run the ball very well and if we can't defend the ground we'll be in for a very long night."
Callum Twomey is a reporter for the AFL website. Follow him on Twitter at @AFL_CalTwomey.
