AFL Injury Update: Timeline set for Dear

Hawthorn forward Calsher Dear is closing in on a return to football as he continues to recover from a stress fracture in his back.

The 19-year-old hasn't tasted AFL action since last year's Semi Final loss to Port Adelaide but in positive news, he is set to progress to full training next week as he inches closer to a return to the field.

Fellow forward Mitch Lewis has also been set a timeline of eight-to-10 weeks as he continues to progress through his ACL recovery, while James Blanck (knee), Sam Butler (leg), Connor Macdonald (ankle) and James Worpel (ankle) will all undergo fitness tests for this weekend.

As announced on Tuesday afternoon, midfielder Will Day has been ruled out for three to four months after sustaining a stress fracture in his foot.

Read and watch High Performance Manager Peter Burge's full injury update below.

James Blanck (knee) - test

"He’s going to play some minutes. There’s a VFL practice match this weekend, there’s no official VFL game. He’ll play some game time in that which is exciting, his first game in over 12 months. He’s been fully training now for at least three to four weeks so he’s ready to go. He’ll play some managed minutes and then we’ll progress his match minutes in the next couple of weeks. He’s really excited. He’s trained amazingly well the past couple of weeks and had a great session last Saturday so it’s really exciting."

Sam Butler (leg) - test

"He’s had the same preparation as James with full match practice last Saturday. He’s fully trained for the last two weeks. We’re just on managed minutes to start with then we’ll progress those over the coming weeks, providing he pulls up well. It’s really exciting for Sam."

Connor Macdonald (ankle) - test

"He’s made some significant progression in the last week. He had a fantastic running session on the weekend and again, yesterday. He’s going to run again tomorrow and we’ll look to put him in some drills on Friday. Then we’ll make a further assessment to his availability after Friday’s full training session."

James Worpel (ankle) - test

"He’s tracking really well. He fully trained today, he’ll fully train again on Friday and then we’ll make a final call on his availability as well for this weekend, but it’s looking promising."

Calsher Dear (back) - 2 weeks

"Some exciting news, we’ve now put a timeline on his return. We’re looking at AFL Round 7 but through the VFL on some managed game time. He’ll miss two more games and start to fully train next week, get two full weeks of training into that VFL game at Round 7 and then progress his game time from there. It’s good to have a solidified timeline now. His scan last week was very, very good so we actually now can progress his football exposure, which we already started but now we can go to full football training."

Mitch Lewis (knee) - 8-10 weeks

"Through consultation with our medical team and sitting down with Mitch, we’ve now put a timeline on his return, so AFL Round 13, but through the VFL is the targeted date at this stage and again, that wouldn’t be a full game to start with. As I said last week, there’s a certain period of time that we just need to spend with Mitch with the injury he’s had and the graft. He’s actually started some training with the group. He did a drill with us on Saturday, albeit no contact, he did a little bit more today but we’re going to just slowly progress his training and by that time, he’ll make his return and have plenty of training under his belt."

Will Day (foot) - 3-4 months

"Yeah, it’s really disappointing for Will, for the club and Will, more importantly. He has a stress fracture in his navicular. We’ve just had a bye and a four-day break and he came back off the break reporting some awareness in his foot. Naturally, we reacted to that, given some history. We went and had some scans and the news isn’t great. He’s going to miss a significant period of time. He’s going to have some surgery tonight, there’s some things there that we need to have a look at and get cleaned up that will hopefully prevent this sort of thing happening again in the future. We’ll have some more news on that after the surgery’s done and in the coming weeks."

Watch Hawthorn's full Round 5 injury update below.

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Hawthorn's AFL Injury List - Round 5

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