A team bonding dinner and an early morning boxing session relieved some pressure for the players early in the week, and Camporeale maintains Essendon's preparation has been largely unaffected by outside factors.
“We haven’t used the press or other people’s opinions to motivate us,” Camporeale said from Windy Hill on Friday.
“Our group and the coaching staff hasn’t really worried about the press and the negative stuff that’s been going around. No one’s down - as a coaching staff, we don’t let that happen. We want to be really consistent in our output and our attitude whether we win or lose. Whether we win by 20 goals or lose by 20, we want to be really consistent.
“It didn’t come last week, but we’ve prepared really well. We dissected the game, and we go back to going after the things that we really want to go after that we probably didn’t do on the weekend.”
While Bachar Houli has emerged from the wilderness for a long-awaited recall, Camporeale maintains there is no extra pressure on the midfielder to perform.
Houli has played just two AFL games in his fourth year at Windy Hill despite being a consistent performer at VFL level. His continued absence from the struggling senior side while younger players have been chosen ahead of him has been a hot topic amongst supporters as the losses have mounted.
Camporeale wasn't sure whether the 22-year-old was playing for his future, but said he deserved his spot.
"He's done the hard yards. He's gone back and worked on the things that we've asked him to do and hence he gets his opportunity," Camporeale said.
"We're really looking forward to Bachar having a real influence on the game.
"If he plays well, he keeps his spot like the rest of the 47 guys who are on the list. If you play well consistently, you're going to get picked, [but] we have got really good competition for spots."
Back-up ruckman Tom Bellchambers (foot) comes out of the side to play North Melbourne, but Camporeale backed Patrick Ryder to hold his own against imposing ruck tandem Hamish McIntosh and Todd Goldstein.
“He’ll have some back-up, but Paddy really shines when he has the full responsibility as we saw last year when David Hille went down,” he said.
“We expect Paddy to have a really big impact on the game. He’s just starting to hit some good form, so we’re hoping he can do the job.”
