The Hawthorn faithful could see Josh Battle back in the brown and gold as soon as Sunday, with the 27-year-old listed as a test for the club's Round 19 clash with Richmond at the MCG.
Battle had his appendix removed just under a fortnight ago and has been sidelined for two matches, but with a solid training block now under his belt, he is pushing for selection this week.
Fellow defender Karl Amon will miss this weekend's game after having minor surgery on his right knee.
While his exact timeline is yet to be determined, Amon's surgery was successful and the club expects him to be available for selection before finals.
Elsewhere, a timeline has been set for young Hawk Jack Dalton after he sprained his MCL late last week during the club's main training session.
The 19-year-old is expected to miss the next five to six weeks.
Read Burge's updates on the aforementioned trio below, as well as Sam Butler, Ned Reeves, Henry Hustwaite and Jack Scrimshaw.
Josh Battle - Appendix (Test)
"He was able to get going over the weekend. We did quite a bit of conditioning on the weekend with him. He's resumed training today, and he'll do full training on Thursday this week. Then we would expect he would be available on the weekend, but we do have to still get through Thursday's main training session with full contact."
Sam Butler - Leg (Test)
"He's progressed really well. Today he was back running outside on grass and running at a good speed, so we're going to put him into training on Thursday, and then we'll make a further call after training on Thursday for his availability."
Ned Reeves - Knee (1-2 weeks)
"He's progressed really well, he's back outside running and moving at good speed today. He's not playing this week, we just want to double down on his strength work to allow a little bit more time for his knee to settle. But we'll have a look at him next week, there's a chance he'll return to training next week, but his session this weekend will determine which way we go with that. So far, it's going very well."
Henry Hustwaite - Face (3-4 weeks)
"He's able to do non-contact training and move around, he just can't get any contact to his face. We're able to work on some conditioning and some speed. He can work on all his skills, we just can't do any contact."
Jack Scrimshaw - Knee (3-5 weeks)
"He's had good progression. We're back outside today where we started to progress some slow running again. He's been on the AlterG treadmill, which is an anti-gravity treadmill, for the last week. We've made some progression today, but there's still some work to do, some strength and stability to go, after his minor surgery last week. So we're still a number of weeks away, but he's feeling good, and we're progressing."
Jack Dalton - Knee (5-6 weeks)
"Unfortunately, in our training session last week, our main session of the week, he suffered an MCL injury to his knee, just in an incident during the session. That ruled him out for the weekend, unfortunately. Now he's going to miss a number of weeks, we've put it at five to six, that could shift either way but he's improved quite well in the last couple of days. We'll be more exact with the timeline as we get closer and we see how his function improves and how his strength improves, but that's a rough timeline at this stage."
Karl Amon - Knee (TBC)
"Karl just had a clean-up earlier this week on his right knee. Now, previously over the time since he's been at Hawthorn, we've been managing his left knee, which is an issue that we've got a program for him that he's been able to play a number of games over the last three years. But this one's just popped up this year, and it was just a minor clean-up, and he'll miss a number of weeks at this stage, very hard to put an exact timeframe on it. It's not a long-term injury, he'll be playing football again by the end of the season. He's actually feeling really good after the surgery and quite positive about how he's feeling, so we'll get him back moving again next week, and then we'll be able to get more specific with his time frame, but at this stage it's looking very positive."
Watch the full Round 19 Injury Update below
Hawthorn AFL Injury List - Round 19
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