Essendon are holding separate team meetings because of concerns their top-up players could eventually inform rival AFL clubs about sensitive game plan information.

The revelation came as Mark Baguley became the sixth player from their 2012 list to join the NAB Challenge team.

That leaves 19 current Bombers who were at the club in 2012 and are sitting out games ahead of the March 31 AFL anti-doping tribunal verdicts.

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It is understood 17 of those players are awaiting their tribunal fates.

The mass absence of 2012-vintage players has forced Essendon to recruit the top ups for the pre-season – and potentially the regular season if the anti-doping tribunal hands down suspensions.

But assistant coach Mark Harvey revealed on Wednesday that the Bombers have concerns about giving the top-up players too much information.

“It’s very hard to simulate your gameplan when you have upwards of eight to 10 players who have just come into your club in the last two weeks,” he told Radio SEN.

“Sometimes, things like structure and the timing of what you need to do, how much information do you pass on with your strategy and tactics to these guys?

“They might be around for a couple of weeks, if not only a week or two, depending on the decision.

“So that’s been a difficulty.”

Harvey then confirmed that the top-up players sometimes were not being given all the team information.

“We’ve had a couple of different meetings, obviously, throughout the course of the week on those sorts of issues,” he said.

Harvey also revealed that during games, they are tending to use the top-up players outside stoppages.

Essendon are putting plenty of work into the players sitting out the pre-season so they are ready for senior football as quickly as possible.

“Our players who haven’t been able to play, they’ve been torched over the last couple of weeks – particularly on a Friday,” he said.

“They’ve been playing out games, not necessarily running too much, but more the physical element.

“We hope we’re getting them somewhere near the game simulation that they would get if they were playing.”

Baguley joins David Zaharakis, Jackson Merrett, Elliott Kavanagh, Lauchlan Dalgleish and Nick O’Brien as 2012 players who are now in the NAB Challenge team.

Essendon’s last NAB Challenge match is against Melbourne on Friday night at Etihad Stadium.

They start their regular season four days after the tribunal verdict, against Sydney at ANZ Stadium.

– AAP