MIDFIELDER Dom Cassisi says the Power will back themselves in what looms as a shoot-out against Essendon at Telstra Dome on Sunday afternoon.

Last year, Port Adelaide established itself as one of the most attacking teams in the league - a style Essendon appeared to emulate at the start of this season.

But the undermanned and out of form Bombers have slipped over the past month, dropping three-successive games, and have now conceded more points than any other team in the competition, behind the winless Melbourne.

“We’ll go out and start the game very attacking, we’ve got no reason to play otherwise,” Cassisi said.

“Every team has plan B and C, but we’ll go out there with the attacking style we want to play and see how that goes.

“Essendon seem pretty different to last year and in previous years. They obviously play an attacking style of footy and appear to be taking the game on.

“They would be a bit worried about our pace and run too, so it should be a good battle. We know we need to play four good quarters and in the last few weeks we’ve showed some really good passages of play.

“We need to put that together again this week and, if we do it for four quarters, we’re pretty confident we’ll get over the line.”

Cassisi said the Power, who lost four-games-straight to start the season, knew what to expect from Essendon this week.

“By the sounds of things, they’ll be fired up. It sounds like they’ve copped a bit in the press this week and we were in a similar position a few weeks ago,” he said.

“Teams always want to respond to that and we’re well aware they’ll come out firing.”

Port Adelaide had a lighter afternoon on Wednesday with several players, including Kane Cornes and Travis Boak, training indoors instead of joining the main group.

Youngsters Greg Bentley and Paul Stewart battled it out in the race to replace the injured Chad Cornes, while Daniel Motlop, Michael Pettigrew and Toby Thurstans took it easy with the game still four days away.

Cassisi said the introduction of two younger players in particular had helped to turn the Power’s fortunes around.

“Our effort when the opposition has the ball has increased and I think we’ve got a really good spread of players at the moment, especially in the midfield,” he said.

“We’ve got a fair few attacking guys and a few more of the tougher guys like Adam Thomson and Tom Logan, who have come into the team and injected a fair bit of toughness.

“The first four weeks were disappointing, but I think the belief among the group was that we were better than what we dished up in that month. We’re confident we can take it up to the better teams in the comp.”

Cassisi said the players were looking forward to the break next week, which will give a few “sore guys” a chance to rest-up.

One of those sore players is vice-captain Shaun Burgoyne.

Burgoyne has been named in the Dream Team squad to tackle Victoria at the MCG on May 10, but is battling a nagging ankle injury and could miss the once in a lifetime game.

“I’ve got no doubt Shaun will put the club first,” Cassisi said.

“If he’s not right, he won’t play, just like any other player involved in that game.”