A trio of Hawks are in line to make their return to play this weekend, with Chad Wingard, Max Ramsden, Ned Reeves and Cooper Stephens all facing tests to prove their fitness.
Hawthorn High Performance Manager Peter Burge provides an update on each player, as well as a host of other Hawks in the club’s Round 16 Injury Update.
Ethan Phillips (Knee) – Available
“Ethan is coming off some minor surgery to remove a loose body in his knee and since that’s gone, his knee has felt fantastic. He trained fully on the Saturday just gone, we had a decent session on Saturday morning. He’ll train this week and be available to play the whole game on the weekend.”
Jack O’Sullivan (Hamstring) – Available
“He’s missed six or seven weeks now, but he’s had a great block of training over the past week. So he’s going to play three quarters of the game this weekend, which is a great result for Jack.”
Max Ramsden (Ankle) – Test
“Max had a rolled ankle issue in the Richmond VFL game before the bye, which has settled. He’s trained today, will train later in the week and he’s in line to be available this weekend.”
Ned Reeves (Back) – Test
“Ned’s had some great treatment over the last week and a half. He did a little bit of training on Saturday and a bit more training today. He’ll train again later in the week and we’ll make a call about his availability for the weekend.”
Chad Wingard (Calf) – Test
“Chad’s progressed into a little bit of training today. We’ve listed him as a test. We are going to have another look at him later in the week. I would say it’s 50/50 at this stage whether we progress to match play this weekend or whether we just take a little bit longer to be absolutely sure with Chad, but we’ll make a decision later in the week.”
Cooper Stephens (Achilles) – Test
“We’ve put him down this week to play a half of footy against Port Melbourne on the weekend. He’s had a great block for the past six weeks reconditioning his body and making sure we’re on top of this Achilles issue which has troubled him for quite a while. There’s a body of work there now that he’s completed that suggests he’s ready to resume some match play on the weekend with a good training week this week, so we’re looking forward to that on the weekend.”
Will McCabe (Back) – 1 week
“There’s sort of two factors with Will. It’s a little bit about how much training he’s been able to do over the past two weeks, and secondly, being a young player with some of the injury history recently, we just have made the decision that we’d like to get another week of training – but we’re aiming for a half of football next week. It’s also linked to the fact that we’ve got some other players playing limited game times this weekend with Cooper (playing half a game) and Jack O’Sullivan as well (playing three quarters of a game). So there’s a little bit going on with the players returning and how we bring them all back at the same time or how we spread them out. With Will, it makes more sense to just do another week of training and then get him back playing next week.”
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