Relief. Joy. Vindication. You could throw in another half-dozen descriptions of the emotions swirling around the Essendon Football Club and their playing list on Tuesday afternoon.

But now, even before ASADA decides whether to appeal the not guilty findings on the past and present Bombers delivered infraction notices, the club has a more pressing reality to confront. A game of football.

Most clubs have had six months to prepare for the opening round of season 2015. In a sense, Essendon have just four days.

While his coaching rivals would have had a potential best side for round one up on their whiteboards the moment lists were finalised after the November drafts, James Hird was only able to lock in his team to take on Sydney at ANZ Stadium on Saturday afternoon a few minutes after 2pm on Tuesday.

When Essendon played its first NAB Challenge game against St Kilda in early March, Hird joked he felt like he'd been coaching three teams over the weekend.

There was the group of 21 players who'd sat out the official pre-season games. A second group, including Brendon Goddard, Adam Cooney, James Gwilt, Zach Merrett, Patrick Ambrose and Joe Daniher, weren't allowed to take part in a match practice training session with VFL club Williamstown.

The third group, full of Essendon's VFL listers and hastily signed top-up players, was dispensed with by 50 points against St Kilda in Morwell. And, as hard as the fill-ins tried in that game, and in a second-round loss to Greater Western Sydney and surprising win over Melbourne in week three, the Bombers will be most relieved Saturday's line-up won't resemble anything like those outfits.

So, after six months of hypothesising, just what will Essendon's early-season teams look like? The short answer might be not bad at all on paper. In reality, anyone's guess.

Our version of the Bombers' best 22 contains no fewer than a dozen players who would have had to be replaced had the tribunal verdict fallen the other way.

It goes without saying that they'll make a vast difference. In structural terms, the group who would have missed includes 80 per cent of Essendon's "spine". It boasts a Brownlow medallist, and collectively, four best-and-fairests, six All-Australian representations and a premiership medal.

Essendon would have been forced to play the likes of Mitch Brown (albeit solid enough in the NAB Challenge), James Gwilt and Patrick Ambrose in key positions both forward and back.

Experienced top-ups such as Clint Jones and Jared Petrenko would have been part of the blend at ground level.

With the worst-case scenario avoided, Essendon, however, are now somewhat spoilt for choice. The side I've picked to take on Sydney can't find room even for established hands like Heath Hocking, Ben Howlett or Jake Melksham, with Jason Winderlich injured, while there's also no room – as yet – for promising youngsters like Marty Gleeson, Jason Ashby or Lauchlan Dalgleish.

There might just be room, however, for the exciting talents of young draftee Kyle Langford, who has looked particularly good in the pre-season games. That's all in theory, of course. The harsher reality is that this side hasn't played together as a group for nearly seven months.

And genuine match practice against genuine opposition is a non-negotiable in a decent pre-season preparation, as Essendon skipper Jobe Watson alluded to in his press conference after the players had been cleared.

"I got hit a few times by my teammates the other day, and they were real punches, so I know they're getting angry," he said. "They don't want to play against each other any more. They're ready to play someone else."

Emotionally, anyhow. But the challenge of Sydney, followed by reigning premier Hawthorn, followed by big games against bitter rivals Carlton and Collingwood, would be sufficient for a team in peak condition, let alone coming off a summer this disrupted.

As Watson said several times during his press conference, this has been an unbelievably stressful two-and-a-bit years for he and his teammates, and as galvanising an effect as that had for much of that period, even they can't truly know how the relief of it now being seemingly at an end will translate on to ANZ Stadium on Saturday.

What they will be able to celebrate, whatever the result come Saturday evening, however, is something more fundamental. The thrill of simply being allowed to take part.

ESSENDON'S BEST 22

B: Baguley, Hooker, Fletcher
HB: Hibberd, Hurley, Dempsey
C: Zaharakis, Watson, Stanton
HF: Chapman, Carlisle, Goddard
F: Z Merrett, Daniher, Langford
Foll: Bellchambers, Myers, Heppell
Inter: Giles, Cooney, Colyer, Ambrose