Essendon’s Mathew Stokes will miss at least the next three matches with a hamstring injury.

The 31 year old has played every game of the season so far, after signing with the Club earlier this year.

The premiership-winning Cat has spent most of his time in the forward half where he has averaged 19 possessions per game.

Stokes felt some soreness in his hamstring against Carlton and will now spend some time on the sidelines.

“We’ve had Mathew Stokes’ hamstring scanned, obviously during the game he had some discomfort and some tightness in it,” High Performance Manager Justin Crow said.

“Unfortunately it does have a strain and he’ll miss at least three games I would have thought.”

The Bombers could be boosted by the return of Vice-Captain Mark Baguley and midfielder Craig Bird.

The pair was named in the initial 25-man squad for the game against the Blues, but were withdrawn after failing to recover from soreness arising from the Anzac Day match against Collingwood.

Crow is also confident Will Hams will be available after missing last week with a shoulder injury, while Alex Morgan is now back in full training and could resume as well.

The Dons second pick (number six overall) in last November’s draft, Aaron Francis, is close to resuming after a calf problem, but won’t line-up this week.

“Aaron is maybe three quarters of the way through his rehab now, he’s doing quite a large volume of running, lots of cross-training,” Crow said.

“He’s really dropping his skinfolds and starting to look more like an athlete – we’re really pleased with Aaron’s progress.”