LATEST DEPRESTING NEWS: Key Hawk Star is out for the remainder of the season, a setback……
Hawthorn key forward Mitch Lewis will be a test to play ahead of his side’s match against North Melbourne on Sunday.
Lewis has missed the last fortnight after injuring his hamstring following the club’s Easter Monday clash with Geelong before facing a seperate issue with his knee.
Hawthorn High Performance Manager Peter Burge said Lewis needed to complete a final training block on Friday in order to be available for selection.
“Mitch increased his training at the end of last week,” Burge said.
“His hamstring is absolutely fine, but we’ve just been managing a niggle with his knee which is improving.
“He will participate in some training tomorrow (Wednesday), and our main session is on Friday so we’ve still got the full week to run, but it’s moving in the right direction.”
In further good news, Changkuoth Jiath will also be a test to play ahead of this weekend, with the defender likely to suit up for Box Hill on Saturday after recovering from a hamstring injury he sustained in the pre-season.
Burge said the club has opted to bring Jiath through the VFL program in order to ease him back into some match minutes.
“He’s tracking along really well, he had a great week of training last week with the group,” Burge explained.
“He’ll come through Box Hill in the VFL, given their game is on Saturday and the AFL game is on Sunday, it’s a different week for training him.
“Our players playing at Box Hill will get training tomorrow so after then we’ll be able to make a strong assessment – if he gets through, he’ll play some minutes on the weekend.”
Meanwhile, Luke Breust is expected to spend another fortnight on the sidelines after dealing with some ongoing groin soreness.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t improved as quickly as we and he would’ve liked,” Burge explained.
“It is a longer-term issue that he has been managing over his whole career, and it’s just not quite in the position in the moment where we thought it would get to after two weeks.
“We need some of his strength measures to improve and he needs to feel more comfortable training at a high intensity.
“He is currently training at a moderate intensity and running comfortably – we’re hopeful that in the next week or two that will jump and then he can resume training and then back into some match play.”
Chad Wingard is also moving closer to his return, with Burge stating that the 30-year-old was two weeks away from potentially returning to match play.
“Chad has done a lot of training recently, he’s been doing full skills with us now for the past fortnight,” Burge said.
“We’ve slated it for a Round 8 return through Box Hill, there are still two more weeks of training and we’re looking forward to how that progresses.”
In a further update, Ned Reeves and Josh Bennetts have been added to the injury list after both suffering concussions in Box Hill’s game against Gold Coast last Saturday.
