HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says Jaeger O'Meara's recovery from last Saturday's VFL comeback was so impressive that he was compelled to select the gun recruit for a senior return against Carlton on Saturday night.
As planned, O'Meara played only three quarters for Box Hill against Essendon and racked up 29 disposals, 16 contested possessions and three goals.
It was O'Meara's first match since late April after being sidelined with a bone stress injury in his right knee – the knee that kept him from playing an AFL game in 2015 and 2016.
Since being traded from Gold Coast at the end of last season, the 23-year-old has played four games for the Hawks.
Clarkson said at the Ricoh Centre on Friday morning that O'Meara had done plenty of work before making his comeback with two matches left in the home-and-away season.
"We've been really, really conservative with making sure we get that right. He's done a really good, strong block of training," Clarkson said.
"He's been training with the skills program, with the main group, for a good part of six weeks.
"Part of his return was to give consideration whether he came straight back in based on his training block, but we just thought it was better for him and us that he had a run around at Box Hill.
"He recovered so well from that game that we think that it's valuable... that he gets a couple of goes at [AFL level] this year."
Read: Match preview Hawthorn v Carlton
The Hawks remain a slight chance to make finals if results go their way. They sit in 12th spot with a 9-10 record, plus a draw against Greater Western Sydney.
However, Clarkson was succinct when asked if the prospect of finals had any bearing on O'Meara's return.
"Nup."
With a seven-day break after O'Meara's VFL outing, Hawthorn felt there was adequate recovery time for him to make his senior return, which the coach hoped would quieten the speculation around the midfielder's playing future.
"There's been that much hysteria created around Jaeger for the whole of the year that I think it's good for him and for us, and for the football community, to actually see him out there playing and say 'Righto, we think he's actually right to go and he might be alright from here on in'," Clarkson said.
"That's our view within the club, but we can't control the hysteria outside of the club.
"He's probably pretty important. If he's right to go, we don't want to just put him out there just for the sake of it, but we think it's valuable for everyone to have a look at him and say 'Yep, he's right to go'.
"Then that can ease off over the summer, you'd hope, and we can just go into next year with a little bit of blue sky in regards to the Jaeger O'Meara stories."
