While the Hawks boast a considerably healthy list heading into the second half of the season, veteran defender Grant Birchall’s return date is still unclear.

“Birch is actually getting a bit of muscle overload issues at the moment,” Director of High Performance Andrew Russell said.

“We’ve ramped his running up and ramped his intensity up, but because he hasn’t done a lot of running in the past nine to 12 months his body is just taking a while to adapt.

“We’ll get through this phase and then we’ll push on and get him prepared to play.”

Watch this week’s Bupa recovery report for updates on James Frawley and Changkuoth Jiath.

Read: How the Hawks turned entries into goals