HAWTHORN is still unsure whether Cyril Rioli will play in Saturday’s Preliminary Final against Port Adelaide at the MCG.
The star Hawk trained with his teammates on Monday and pulled up well, with GM – Football Operations Chris Fagan declaring his run was better than expected.
But the Hawks are still uncertain whether the dynamic forward, who hasn’t played any football since Round 15, will play on Saturday.
“We’ve still got an open mind at this stage,” Fagan told hawthornfc.com.au
“We’re still not sure, we need to wait and see how things pan out when we train later in the week and we’ll make a decision then.
“He trained on Monday and he trained pretty well and in some ways, probably a little better than we thought he would.”
Defender Matt Suckling is in the frame for the Preliminary Final despite missing the VFL young guns game on Saturday.
The lethal left footer has overcome the knee injury that forced him to miss Hawthorn’s last two matches, with Fagan revealing Suckling didn’t play in the game in favour of a rigorous training run on Friday.
“I think ‘Suckers’ has well and truly got his hand up for availability, it’s just a matter of whether we select him or we don’t,” Fagan said.
“Our fitness guys decided to give him a hard training run on Friday morning instead to see if he could get through that, and he did, which was really pleasing.
“He trained again on Monday morning and pulled up well.”
Suckling missed last year’s finals series with a serious knee injury and was forced to undergo a full knee reconstruction after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament during a pre-season game.
Fagan said the players are in good shape heading into Saturday’s clash after a solid week of training last week.
“They’re looking good,” he said. “They had a hard training block last week and did a little bit of recovery on the weekend before another good hit out on Monday morning.
“They’re feeling fresh and very much looking forward to the game on Saturday night.”
