Changkuoth Jiath is the sole test for Hawthorn's Opening Round clash with Sydney this Friday night, while Calsher Dear has progressed in his recovery from a stress fracture in his lower back. 

Hawthorn High Performance Manager Peter Burge also provided an update on the club's longer-term injuries, including positive news on Mitch Lewis and James Blanck in their recoveries from respective ACL injuries. 

Changkuoth Jiath - Hip (Test) 

"Just going back two weeks on one of our main trainings, he just had a bit of hip irritation which was just impacting his kicking and top-end speed. So we've just had to back off for the last week. He actually fully trained last week and we thought we were in a position where he was going to play some game time but he just flagged that he was still not 100 per cent comfortable with that, so we just took the opportunity to take another week. He fully trained today and given we've got another main training session on Wednesday, I'd expect he'd be playing game time at the end of this week." 

Calsher Dear - Back (TBC) 

"He's progressing really well. He'll be at the 12-week mark this Saturday and we're due for another scan which will be done next week. So we've got him back doing sprint drills, we've got him back doing straight-line running at a very controlled pace and the goal is, based on the next scan, to progress his conditioning and how much conditioning we can do and then lateral movement. So all is tracking well at this stage but it really comes down to how the scans look. We're expecting it to be more in the positive but then the progression after that is about how long do we take to get back into football training and obviously playing. There'll be another scan after that as well. It's still very difficult to put an exact timeline but it's progressing the way we wanted it to. Hopefully, after next week, we get some really good news about where we can go with his conditioning."

Mitch Lewis - Knee (TBC) 

"He's tracking really, really well. The trip to the US for both Mitch and James Blanck was unbelievable. It's a little bit of a different approach but Mitch is now back into some really strong acceleration work and running. The next stage is to now progress his conditioning again to look at some football training. We're only eight or nine months into the process so there is still some time that we need to tick off before we consider football but it's progressing really well. Even before he went to the States, he was doing some great conditioning work and then we backed him off. We gave him a week of holidays over there as well. He didn't get a break at the end of last year. It's all looking good." 

James Blanck - Knee (6-8 weeks) 

"He's resumed skills training with the group. Today, he did three out of our four drills. He did a little bit of contested work today as well, he did aerial marking so all the physical and fitness side of things, the speed, the agility, those boxes have been ticked from a rehab point-of-view. Now it's just adding a real training load to those movements and specific football actions he has to do. We need weeks of football training and continuing to add to his football conditioning and challenge him in different ways. We've put a six to eight-week return on that. He would return at a limited game time level through Box Hill but people can do the maths and work out where that's at. It's not too far away."

Sam Butler - Leg (TBC) 

"He's in a holding pattern at the moment. Around the camp, we had made some progression and he has done some conditioning sessions with the group in the pre-season, but we haven't been able to progress any further at this stage. There's just been some mechanical things that we've had to tick off and look at. He's had a bit of irritation here or there and it's just an overall load thing but it will resolve. It's just a time thing with this particular injury, it was a nasty injury. So we're in a holding pattern at the moment and we're going to be very smart with the way we progress him over the next month." 

Watch Hawthorn's Opening Round Injury Update below

Hawthorn AFL Injury List - Opening Round