Essendon has rushed Scott Lucas back for its clash against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium on Friday night.
The Bombers have been without the dangerous left footer since he hurt his knee in Round 1 and are looking forward to reuniting him with Matthew Lloyd in attack.
Lucas had a test on Wednesday to make sure he had returned to his pre-season fitness levels and then trained with the club on Thursday morning.
Team-mate Jobe Watson, who confirmed his inclusion at a media conference in Adelaide, said he was an important member of the team.
"He's been one of the top two or three players in the club for the last four or five years so when you lose a guy like that, every club has injuries, but you really do feel it when it's someone of his level," Watson said.
"His importance to the side and his ability to keep the forward line structure, along with Matthew (Lloyd), just helps the young guys around the club."
"Just having that familiar face on the field and his ability to read the game and to do something special at the right time is something that you miss."
Watson said the return of Lucas would also provide plenty of assistance to the Bombers' skipper who's been blanketed by opposition teams.
"It takes some of the heat off Matthew and any forward line player will tell you, if you have two forwards in the one side it makes it a lot easier for each of them," he said.
Adelaide defender Ben Rutten said the inclusion of Lucas would make life tougher for the Adelaide defenders.
"Having one forward up there is hard enough but having two quality players - obviously getting Scott Lucas is going to be a big bonus for them," Rutten said.
"We haven't gone too well against them, last year especially, I think Lucas kicked a fair few goals early in the year and then Lloydy towards the end so they've caused us a few problems the last couple of times we've played them."
"It means you need to have two good defenders to stop them. If one of them is firing or both of them is firing it makes it really difficult."
"With a couple of quality forwards it can take a bit of attack out of your defence so it's going to be a tough challenge for us."