HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has said both Will Langford and Ryan Schoenmakers are in contention to return to the Hawks’ line-up ahead of their clash with Richmond at the MCG tomorrow night.
Speaking to the media at training at Waverley Park today, Clarkson said that both players would be a chance to return to face the Tigers.
“They’ll both be in the mix and we’ll determine (who plays) this afternoon,” he said.
The news wasn’t as good for key defender James Frawley, who didn’t train with the main group this morning having suffering a bout of concussion after a collision with teammate Ben Stratton in the Hawks’ loss to GWS last week.
“We’ll check (his availability) this afternoon – we don’t want to take any risk with our players who have been concussed,” Clarkson said.
“That will be determined by the doctors rather than the coaches, but (Frawley playing) is probably more unlikely than likely to be fair.”
Clarkson also said the omission of captain Luke Hodge due to a knee injury was a big loss for the Hawks.
“Hodge is going to be a big out for us – he’s the captain of our club – but we’ve had plenty of occasions before where we’ve lost players and we replace them and we’ll do so again.”
The four-time premiership coach said he had no concerns over Hodge’s durability, after suffering a broken arm against Geelong and now a knee injury against the Giants.
“Both of those were collision injuries – if they were more wear-and-tear injuries you’d be more concerned,” Clarkson said.
“(Hodge) has had no trouble with his knees aside from an unfortunate PCL, which was a collision injury against St Kilda about four years ago.”
“He’s been pretty sound in that regard, but if he was starting to break down with a lot of soft tissue or stress-related injuries we’d be more concerned, but these are collision injuries and with the way he plays, he’s going to get those.”
Clarkson also said that it was pleasing to see key forward Jarryd Roughead back running and doing skills work on his return from a PCL injury.
“Roughead’s started training – he’s had a really good rehab to date and with a bit of ball work over the next couple of weeks he’ll get himself right and hopefully be available to play in the next month or so.”
Youngsters Kaiden Brand, Angus Litherland and Dallas Wilsmore also trained with the main group, as they push for a spot in the Hawks’ senior team for tomorrow night.
