Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell says Nick Watson and Josh Battle are set to make their return this Sunday against Richmond at the MCG. 

Both players have been sidelined for the past two matches, with Watson experiencing hamstring tightness and Battle having his appendix removed. 

Mitchell also confirmed that midfielder Will Day has a corked calf and would miss the Round 19 match. 

The Hawks coach revealed that the plan was to manage Day at some point between now and the end of the season, what that opportunity now coming on Sunday as he recovers from the corked calf.

Speaking to the media on Thursday morning, Mitchell also credited the depth of the side throughout the past few weeks, with a host of players getting their opportunities at the elite level recently. 

On the depth of the team 

“It’s been a couple of challenging match committees, and I think our medical team have done a great job. I’ve always been really proud of what we've been able to do with the alignment with Box Hill in the VFL, and this is when you need to call on it. So if you just use Noah Mraz as an example, he's played some good footy at VFL. We've had him working on some parts of his game across the first half of this season, and when he got his opportunity, those things he'd been working on and implementing, he could do them at an AFL level. So we still get caught out sometimes with the intensity of the game, because there's a bit of a gap obviously between AFL and VFL, but for those guys to be able to step up for the most part pretty seamlessly, I think it’s a good reflection of them and the work rate and work ethic that they put in, but also of, of some of the coaching that goes in behind the scenes to make sure there's alignment between the two teams.”

On Nick Watson’s availability 

“Like everyone, he has to get through training and make sure he's all good, but he'll do full training, and then if he gets through that, he'll play.”

On Josh Battle’s availability 

“I think he's got full training ahead and then if he gets through that, then he'll play as well. There are a couple of handy ins, I think. Josh Weddle's the other one, so there's probably those three that are the bigger names of those ins.”

On Will Day’s availability 

“Probably the other one that's worth mentioning is that Will Day won't play. He got a cork in his calf, and he wasn't going to be able to train today. I think there were about 14 games between when he came back and the end of the season, and we knew he wouldn't play 14 straight. So we knew he'd have to miss a game at some stage. He's got the corked calf, so he'll miss this one unfortunately, but it was going to happen somewhere over the next month anyway. We knew he had to miss anyway. So, this has probably made the decision. We weren't sure where he would miss a game, but it was going to be somewhere in the next four, so this has pushed it.” 

Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below