Saturday night will be the first time Ryder plays his former teammates after he left the club at the end of last year to escape the ongoing drama over its controversial supplements program.

Essendon have struggled in the centre without him - Shaun McKernan was consistently beaten by North Melbourne's Todd Goldstein at the weekend.

But their senior coach said he did not believe in dropping a player after one poor performance.

He had considered playing two ruckman this week, but decided against it, leaving Jonathan Giles languishing in the reserves.

"You can get caught up with just playing two ruckmen and lose somewhere else," Hird said.

The team was always going to miss Ryder, he said.

"There's no doubt that the ascendancy they had in the tapwork last year hasn't been there this year."

Hird was unapologetic about playing veteran Paul Chapman in the reserves.

"The game is so hard that if you haven't played for six or seven weeks you need to really get some match fitness to be able to come back into a side."