Essendon have not given up hope of convincing wantaway duo Jake Carlisle and Jake Melksham to stay now that John Worsfold has been installed as their new senior coach.
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Carlisle and Melksham have both informed Essendon in the past month that they want fresh starts at new clubs next season.
Carlton and St Kilda are believed to be leading the race for Carlisle's signature while Melksham appears destined to end up at Melbourne.
But Bombers football manager Rob Kerr is hoping that a heart-to-heart with Worsfold could change their minds.
"I don't think it's irreconcilable," Kerr told SEN on Tuesday morning.
"But obviously in their own minds they've probably gone a fair way down the track towards making a move which can be hard to retrieve things from there.
"But I do think it's worth us having another chat to those boys with a senior coach in place now, John can talk to them about his philosophies and how he would see those boys fitting in to what he wants to do with the group in the future.
"So I think at the very least we should be having that conversation and hopefully prompting them to have a little bit of a rethink about whether they want to move on or not."
Kerr believes that Carlisle and/or Melksham could be swayed to reconsider their positions with the uncertainty over Essendon's direction having now dissipated following Worsfold's appointment.
"As a footballer you want to see what the vision and what the future looks like for yourself and that's been a bit hard to do in the last couple of months because we were clearly looking for a new senior coach," Kerr said.
"We've got the person in place now who can talk about what the future looks like from his point of view so that at least gives them some food for thought and it will be up to them to make their decision once John's made contact and had those conversations."
If Essendon were unsuccessful in changing the duo's minds, Kerr was confident the club would get adequate trades for them.
Meanwhile, Kerr denied that Brisbane Lions ruckman Matthew Leuenberger joining Essendon as a free agent was a fait accompli.
"We've been in conversations with Matthew and his manager as well as other ruckmen, we think we do need to add another ruckman to our list," Kerr said.
"It's been speculated that ourselves and Sydney are the two clubs that probably lead the race [for Leuenberger] so with free agency opening up on Friday we'd be hoping that a decision will be made in the lead-up and come to fruition on Friday."
