Hawthorn could be bolstered by the return of experienced forward Luke Breust ahead of its match with North Melbourne this Sunday. 

Breust is a test to play for this weekend's clash after he missed last Saturday's game against GWS due to a larynx (throat) injury.

The 32-year-old wasn’t able to complete any contact training last week which meant he was ruled out ahead of the game last Saturday.

But High Performance Manager Peter Burge said Breust's injury had slowly improved since and that he was expected to fully train this week.

“He had a knock to the throat from the previous game (against Carlton), and lost his voice a little bit as well which we didn’t think too much of initially, but the doctor then got a bit suspicious because it didn’t improve during the week," Burge said. 

"We expected him to fully train last Thursday, he had planned to train then, but they did some further testing with a specialist Thursday morning.

"They found he had a little hematoma in his throat which is affecting his voice and it just needed to settle.

“We’ll assess his availability later in the week, but I would be more than positive about his availability for this week given it's such an unusual injury."

After playing VFL the previous week, Changkuoth Jiath was on track to make his AFL return last week, however, was ruled out with an achilles issue.

Burge said the promising defender was "much better" this week, and had already completed two training sessions since where his recovery has improved.

"This time last week I wasn’t talking about this because after the game (Jiath's VFL return) we’d felt he had pulled up relatively well," Burge explained. 

“But we hadn’t trained at that stage, and then when we got into training on Thursday it became apparent he actually didn’t feel that comfortable.

“He only got going to 70-80 per cent and was not comfortable running at speed and he didn’t complete full training so we made the decision for him not to play.

“We have him as a test at the moment for this weekend, I would hope he gets through our next two sessions this week and feels back to where he was and then we’ll declare his availability on Friday."

Meanwhile, key defender James Blanck has been ruled out for Sunday's match-up after entering the concussion protocols following an incident that arose from the GWS game.

"Symptoms were starting to develop post-game and he failed the concussion testing so he is now going to miss this week, having gone into the 12-day concussion protocols," Burge said. 

"But he is feeling very good now two days post-game. We suspect him to miss only this weekend and then be available for the game the following week."

Hawthorn is set to announce its squad for Sunday’s game on Thursday at 6.20pm, before the final team of 22 is announced on Friday at 5pm.

See the fully injury report ahead of Round 18 below.

Injury List