With an injury list the size of a hospital casualty ward, Essendon will unveil three more debutants in Sunday's AFL clash with Port Adelaide.

The Bombers' No.6 pick in last year's draft David Myers, promoted mature-age rookie Jarrod Atkinson and Darcy Daniher - son of former Sydney and Essendon star Anthony Daniher - will play their first senior matches at Telstra Dome against the Power.

Essendon coach Matthew Knights said his club was taking a "big picture view" by blooding the trio.

"It's quite plain to see that if you get game time and age demographics through players, your period of success will happen," Knights said.

"Obviously Hawthorn and Geelong have got games and experience in their young people over time and now they're the two strongest teams in the competition at this point.

"As a club, we've got to get maturity, age, size and games through young men."

Essendon have at least 14 players sidelined this week with injury or illness.

Dustin Fletcher (groin), Jason Winderlich (groin) and Kyle Reimers (foot) were all injured during the Anzac Day clash with Essendon, while Damien Peverill broke his jaw playing for Bendigo and Adam Ramanauskas is ill.

Promising youngster Courtenay Dempsey, who has been in rehab with a torn hamstring, has also been diagnosed with stress fractures, which will extend his time on the sidelines to up to eight weeks.

Late on Thursday, it emerged that Scott Gumbleton has re-joined the casualty list, just as he was preparing for his return to football.

Gumbleton had recovered from a hamstring injury, but he strained the medial ligament in his left knee at training and will be out for three to four weeks.

"Sure, we've got a few injuries but that's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned because we've got 44 on our list and that's what they're there to do, play AFL footy," said Knights.

"It just doesn't alter things, you have the same vision, the same direction and same steely resolve."

Knights said he was taking the positives out of a challenging situation, all within his first six weeks as senior coach and had high expectations for the three first gamers.

"The game doesn't know how old you are so whether you're 17 or whether your 33-34 it's irrelevant," he said.

"You're out there, you play your role and with these guys we're expecting nothing less.

"I would have high standards for them to play their role and beat their opponent."

Daniher admitted he is used to the tag of being another one of the Daniher clan that included brothers Neale, Terry, Anthony and Chris who combined for total of 752 AFL matches.

But he understood he had not achieved anything yet.

"Getting selected is one thing, but there's still a game to be played," Daniher said.

"At the moment the nerves haven't kicked in but I'm sure I'll lose a bit of sleep over the next couple of nights."

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