Hawthorn Coach Alastair Clarkson has confirmed star midfielder Jaeger O’Meara will not take his place in the side that takes on Geelong on Friday night. 

The four-time premiership coach explained the medical staff couldn’t give clearance for O’Meara to play given his limited training preparation.

“He won’t play this week,” Clarkson said.

“We met with the doctors yesterday and, although he’s done most of the training, we haven’t been able to ramp it up to full on contact as yet

“The surgeon and doctor won’t allow us to do that until early next week so he will be an unfortunate miss for us this week but should hopefully be right for next week.”

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Clarkson explained that O’Meara’s absence would open up some midfield opportunities for a number of his Hawks teammates.

“We’ve always run a lot of players through the middle of the ground.

“So, Puopolo, Wingard, Breust, Gunston, Smith, Henderson – we have a fair amount of depth through the middle of the ground.

“We will probably be pushing those guys through there in Jaeger’s absence.”

In more positive news for the Hawks, Blake Hardwick will be available for selection after overcoming a pectoral muscle tear which he suffered in late February. 

But Clarkson fell short of confirming Hardwick’s spot in the side, saying the match committee had to weigh up a number of elements before naming the defender.

“He is available to play, we just need to make the tough call on whether he has done enough.

“He has been doing contact stuff for the last three or four weeks now, so we’re reasonably pleased with where he is positioned. 

“We will determine that today whether he makes it into our 22.

“We know we don’t necessarily want to make too much change to the side that knocked off Brisbane in Round 1.”