ESSENDON remains confident Michael Hurley will recommit to the club, but concedes it still has "some work to be done" to ward off strong rival bids for the All Australian key defender.
Hurley is one of five Essendon players yet to recommit to the club in the wake of the season-long WADA suspensions handed down to 12 Bombers in January.
As one of the competition's best key defenders, the 26-year-old has predictably drawn strong interest from clubs believed to include the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Essendon CEO Xavier Campbell told SEN radio on Thursday morning he was not surprised at the level of interest in Hurley given his playing pedigree, but said the Bombers were comfortable with where things sat.
"'Hurls' is a great person. We've had discussions for a pretty significant period of time now," Campbell said.
"We've always felt like it was going to take varying amounts of time with each player to get to a position where they felt they were comfortable to come back to the football club.
"We're not pressing that any further than what we feel is appropriate, that's why [the re-signings] have been so staggered.
"I just felt with Hurls he's very close to his teammates, (there's) a strong association with our group, they've been through a very challenging period together.
"There's still some work to be done to get Hurls there, but we remain confident on the position that we've got."
Campbell reaffirmed the Bombers' consistent stance this year that they would stand in the way of any of the suspended players – contracted or not – who said they wanted to leave the club.
Hurley is contracted to the end of 2017 but is understood to be weighing up whether to seek a fresh start at a new club or recommit long term to Essendon.
Campbell said the Bombers would seek to do a trade if Hurley indicated he wanted to leave, suggesting no suspended Dons would seek to depart as delisted free agents as mooted earlier this year.
"In the work that we've done with the AFL and others with the grievance process, we don't think that is an option," Campbell said.
"Working with those parties a lot of their management groups have indicated that if they wanted to go they'd work to do a trade with the club.
"It's all a bit of a hypothetical right now, because I still think we're in a good position to [re-sign the players].
"But clearly for a football club like us with where we've been, where we're going, we're a completely new football club really."
Veteran midfielder Brent Stanton became the seventh suspended Bomber to re-sign with the club on Wednesday, joining Cale Hooker, Dyson Heppell, David Myers, Tom Bellchambers, Travis Colyer and Heath Hocking.
Hurley, Jobe Watson, Michael Hibberd, who has been linked to Melbourne, Ben Howlett and Tayte Pears have yet to recommit to the club.
