The Bombers will wait until after a training session on Monday to pick their team for Thursday night's match against the Magpies at Etihad Stadium, with the Bombers' No.1 draft pick Andrew McGrath rated internally as a good chance of making his debut for the club.

Essendon supporters are eager for their first glimpse of the former Sandringham Dragons star - the club's first ever No.1 draft choice.

McGrath is expected to start in a running half-back role, but the Bombers hope he will develop into an elite midfielder in the longer term.

The opening match of the JLT Community Series will be a landmark occasion for several of the Essendon players who missed the 2016 season through doping bans, although ruckman Tom Bellchambers (knee) and swing man Cale Hooker (hamstring) are unavailable for the Collingwood game.

Much intrigue will surround the Essendon players returning to competitive football, and Carey warned that they could be vulnerable to soft-tissue injuries.

Carey, who missed 12 months of football before becoming an Adelaide player late in his career, spoke from personal experience when he said no amount of training could replicate the intensity the previously banned Bombers will face when they run out against the Magpies under new captain Dyson Heppell.

He said the great unknown was how they would adjust to the pace and physical pressure of competitive football.

"You can never replicate match fitness," Carey said.

"It's going to be a very telling how they cope with the crash and bash part of the game. Sure, running and things like that are fine and probably they will be up in the top echelons in that department. But that's only part of your foundation fitness."

"I did all the running, I went hard and got fit very fit, but looking back, there's a certain fitness you can't get away from the heat of an AFL game, when you are drawing on all your reserves and attempting movements that only come in a real game.

"After the year I had off I did a hamstring that I'd never done before. Then came a couple of calf injuries, and just a string of soft-tissue niggles."

Coach John Worsfold has admitted even he and his coaching staff are in the dark as to how the returning players will adjust, physically and mentally, to their AFL returns.

"I place caution over the Essendon boys for this reason when you play football each year you slowly build residual body strength, so every season that improves but take a year out and you suddenly slip back with not having [those] constant body clashes," Carey said.

"I learnt a valuable lesson during that time and it's however hard you push yourself there are special things about our game you can't replicate at the park building up miles in your legs."