Hawthorn's reigning best and fairest winner Will Day is set to make his anticipated AFL return this weekend.

Day has spent the start of the year on the sidelines after developing a stress fracture in his foot during the pre-season in January. 

After a successful rehabilitation period, Hawthorn High Performance Manager Peter Burge said Day is now available to play his first game of the 2024 season, with the Hawks preparing to face Sydney at the MCG this Sunday. 

"It's fantastic, it's been a long time coming," Burge said.

"Will has done quite a bit of work over the last 3-4 weeks, where he has put himself in the position to return and play a full game this week.

"We've used the last two weeks to build his condition to a level where he is able to withstand that and handle it."

In some further pleasing news, veteran forward Chad Wingard is set to make a gradual return via the VFL as he looks to rebuild his match fitness following an extended period on the sidelines.

Wingard has been on the recovery trail since August last year after injuring his achilles, and is set to ease into some match play this weekend with Box Hill.

"Chad has been fantastic across the last three weeks at training, so we've made the call to use Box Hill this week where he'll look to play half a game as part of his preparation," Burge said.

"Each week we'll build that slowly so it will be an accumulation process over a few weeks to build him to full match fitness.

"He has been going really well this whole time which has put him slightly ahead of our original schedule, but he's certainly ready for it."

The Hawks could also regain key forward Mitch Lewis this weekend, with the 25-year-old to undergo a fitness test ahead of Sunday's ANZAC Appeal Round. 

Lewis has missed the past three weeks after facing seperate injuries with his hamstring and knee. 

"Last week we had the same (listed as a test) and we were hoping he would get through the first session and be able to do some drills and progress into training," Burge said.

"But that didn't happen, we just kept him straight line running so it's worked out a little slower than we'd expect and we're in similar position this week.

"He has improved from last week, we'll look at it again tomorrow to see if we're in a position to resume training and drills, but he needs to be confident accelerating at speed and going off line with his knee.

"We've listed him as a test again, but there are a few hoops to get through."

Meanwhile, in some unfortunate news, Changkuoth Jiath is set to spend a further 2-3 weeks on the sidelines after scans revealed a minor quad strain.

Burge said Jiath had fully recovered from the hamstring injury he sustained in February and had been given the green light to return to action via the VFL last weekend before the latest setback. 

"He pulled up sore from the main training session last week which we didn't discover until the next day," Burge explained. 

"But it's completely unrelated to the hamstring injury that he had previously, he is still running at high speed now.

"It has been a while since he has played a full game of football, we now need to get some back-to-back football sessions in which has been held up a week or two now with his quad.

"It's just specifically kicking on his right leg that is the issue unfortunately, so we just need a little bit of time. The good news is that he can do all our other drills and not kick on that side."

Check out the full injury update with Burge below.

Injury List