Essendon are close to fielding their most high-powered team as the countdown to the AFL finals continues with Friday night’s crucial clash with Geelong.

A victory for the Bombers has the potential to lift them into the top four while simultaneously sending the Cats out of the eight.

Along with speedster Jason Winderlich, Essendon can expect to welcome back a host of key players.

Bombers coach James Hird said forward Michael Hurley (hamstring) would be “very close” next week and Paddy Ryder (calf) should be fully fit the following week.

David Zaharakis is likely to be up for selection within three weeks and midfielder Heath Hocking is just a week away.

“It’s all coming together okay,” Hird said.

He described round 17 as “pretty defining for a lot of teams”.

“I think the next three or four weeks for the top eight, we’ll see where it settles.

“This Friday for us is a huge game. It’s a game we want to win, need to win and need to play well in.”

Hird conceded the club’s new intensive and exhausting training routine had produced soft-tissue injuries – but also scoreboard results.

He said he was determined to rectify last year’s disappointing fade-out in games, even though Essendon made the finals.

“It wasn’t even the fade-out at the back of the year because we actually won enough games to get us into the finals. It was more the way we faded out in games that we were disappointed about,” he said.

“That’s probably why our training regime is where it’s at and why we’ve got some injuries, because we’ve decided to go a way that we want to compete at the end of games – not just at the start of games.

“To do that, you need to train your players pretty hard.

“It’s been well documented that we’ve had some injuries doing that, but there’s also been some reward in the way we’ve played in the last quarters as well.”