Two players have been added to Hawthorn's AFL injury list ahead of the club's clash with Fremantle at Optus Stadium on Saturday night.
As mentioned by Hawthorn Coach Sam Mitchell in his press conference last week, Sam Butler is experiencing soreness in the leg that he broke last year and has officially been added to the injury list in the short term.
He joins Noah Mraz on the sidelines, with the young defender sustaining a knee injury during training late last week.
High Performance Manager Peter Burge provided updates on the young duo, as well as Bodie Ryan (clavicle), Will Day (foot) and Josh Weddle (back) in this week's injury update.
Sam Butler - leg (1 week)
"As a result of the terrible injury he suffered last year, there's just been some complications around the fibula side of his leg. The initial injury was a pretty horrific injury, there was bone damage and quite a bit of muscle damage as well so to describe what he's got at the moment, it's like having shin splints but on the outside of his leg, not on the inside where you would typically see them and it just needs a short period to deload, just given the nature of the previous injury. He's now played a total of 11 games, including VFL games, so he's played quite a lot of football. We've just had to go with a little more management of that accumulation of that load. We expect him to resume some form of training next week and we'll assess his availability to play football next week as we progress over the next couple of days. But he's definitely improved and feels a lot better, we just need to take that next step back into loading on land and progressing to football training again."
Bodie Ryan - clavicle (1-2 weeks)
"He's back into non-contact training. He did most drills today which were non-contact so back into the swing of things with the group. He's got some contact intro drills that he needs to tick off through our rehab group which we'll do this week during the week and then over the weekend, we'll hopefully progress that to more full contact training next week. But at this stage, we've listed him as one to two weeks. We're hopeful that we can get him back to full contact and potentially playing in the VFL next week but we've got a VFL bye after that, so we've got some decisions to make towards the end of next week. If he's progressing really well, he'll be playing. If there's any slight doubt or hesitation, we'll be taking the extra week."
Will Day - foot (2-4 weeks)
"He's progressing fantastically well. We're on track, he did the whole training session today, albeit that it wasn't a long football session with the main group still recovering three days post-game. But he did every drill today and we expect to progress his drills again on Thursday. We're getting closer to a targeted Round 20, which we've initially stated as his return game, but we've still got some work to do and some other things we have to tick off and make sure he's absolutely ready for that game."
Noah Mraz - knee (6-8 weeks)
"Unfortunately, during our training session last Thursday, our main session, he suffered a contact injury and has injured the MCL, which is the medial collateral ligament in his knee, which has now put him out of action for a number of weeks. He's in a brace at the moment just to stablise and let the healing happen. It's a medium to long-term injury, which we've stated as six to eight weeks. We'll have more clarity in a week's time, just depending on how that's stablised and how he's healing. We expect him to play some football later in the season. It's disappointing for him obviously, he's been going so well and stringing a lot of football together. But he's bouncing around at the moment and looking for things to do, like different types of cross-training we can do with his upper body and various things. He's supporting his teammates, he's watching vision and he's had a fantastic year so far, so we expect that to continue when we get him back."
Josh Weddle - back (TBC)
"Josh Weddle has started his rehab phase. He's off legs at the moment and in a limited program doing some basic strength work, just around his pelvis and those sorts of activities in the rehab group with Jack Price. We'll be able to give a more exact timeline over the coming weeks once we have a further scan in a couple of weeks from now but as we said last week, there's some optimism that we'll see him again later this year but at the moment, he's progressing well through the rehab phase."
Watch Hawthorn's full Round 18 injury update below.
Hawthorn AFL Injury List - Round 18
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