Hawks Coach Alastair Clarkson has revealed Cyril Rioli’s return against Collingwood last weekend happened much sooner than the club had expected.

Appearing on Channel 7’s Talking Footy on Monday night, Clarkson said the four-time premiership star returned almost three weeks ahead of schedule, with Rioli impressing with 14 disposals and a goal in his first game back since Round 8 last year.

“We usually have a rule of thumb at our footy club that it takes about 10 to 12 weeks to get a bloke fully fit and he was right on the edge of that in terms of being at about 9 weeks or there abouts,” Clarkson said.

“But his last three of or four weeks his training just went through the roof and that was full credit to him but also to Andrew Russell and Luke Boyd our head guys who look after him conditioning-wise and he was just ready to go.”

Rioli missed the majority of last year with a PCL injury, before returning home to Darwin during the preseason after his father suffered a heart attack.

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“As a club we always put the player and his family and the needs of the family first and all we did know is that we had to support Cyril through that time,” Clarkson said.

The four-time premiership coach also welcomed the return of another key club figure, with Jeff Kennett taking the reigns as the club’s president after holding the role between 2005 and 2011, despite the pair finding themselves at loggerheads in the past.

“We’re both very, very passionate about what we do… we actually like the fact that we’ll challenge one another and we just don’t be submissive to one another and we think that as long as we walk out the door we’ve had good healthy debate,” he said.

“We are quite open to the fact that we need healthy debate and that’s what makes our club strong.”