According to a club source Essendon spearhead full foward Matthew Lloyd will return and play against the saints this friday night at the telstra dome.Lloyd missed lastweeks game against the bulldogs because of a suspected torn calf muscle.Scans early this week confirmed that there was a build up of fluid in his calf muscle and no tear, much to Lloyds delight.Essendon coach Matthew Knights today told the herald sun that ''Lloyd wouldnt be playing unless he was 100% '' and that he would have a further test on thursay night at training.The source tells me that Lloyd is fit to play and will most likely be in the selected line up tomorrow night.The bombers face St kilda friday night at the dome which should be a close game going by the last time they played in the nab cup earlier this year.Lloyd will provide relief to the essendon foward line that has been struggling with injury since the start of the year with key forward Scott Lucas doing a knee injury in the first game and a number of other forward players doing hamstrings.Essendon are looking into the cause of a number of injurys to players this year narrowing it down to fatigue during game breaks and hard surfaces at windy hill and the telstra dome according to the Essendon coach Matthew knights.Another couple of bombers could be making a return this week including Andrew Welsh (hamstring) and Angus Monfries (food sickness) having these players and Matthew Lloyd return should give the bombers a fighting chance against the backed favorite Saints.
Sydney swan superstar Barry Hall has been banned for 7 matches by the AFL match review panel .The ban comes after an incident involving Hall and west coast eagle Brent Staker last weekend in which Hall punched Staker in the head.After being banned for 7 matches Hall apologised for his actions which has tarnished the game and said he was ''very remorseful'' about the whole incident.The hearing went for around 70 minutes when jury members Stewart Lowe,David Pittman and Wayne schimmelbusch gave the verdict.Hall who was having a good start to the season will now miss the next 7 games against geelong,nth melbourne,bulldogs,essendon,p ort adel,richmond and west coast.The swans take on last years premiers geelong this round and will have to do it without Hall up forward.This incident will no doubt put strain on the team and coaching staff before they make there way down to melbourne to face geelong at shell staduim this weekend.Im sure that Paul Roos will try and fire up the swans side before they face the hard task of facing geelong who are undefeated so far in 2008 and have all their star players in tact.Hall will have a month to ponder his actions and hopefully comeback ready to play footy and concentrate on what matters most winning football games.
Welcome to the Atomic AFL blog droping the biggest AFL stories of the 2008 season to everybody worldwide.Over the year i will posting write ups on the biggest stories happening in the AFL this year with player news , club news and general AFL news .So i hope you stay tuned for the 1st instalment from the Atomic AFL blog coming soon.
cheers blogger, andy miller
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Comment by Andy Miller
on Lloyd to play against Saints