HAWTHORN ruckman Max Bailey remains on track to take part in the Hawks' pre-season campaign despite missing the opening round of the NAB Cup.

Bailey, 24, was named in the initial squad to take on Fremantle and West Coast, but did not make the trip to Perth with his teammates for Sunday's matches.

Hawthorn football manager Mark Evans said his omission was part of the club's ultra-cautious approach with the ruckman as he eases back into full contact match play after his third knee reconstruction.

"Max played in the intra-club in Tassie and came out of there with a small amount of swelling in his knee, so rather than rush him back in for the next game we just gave him a bit of extra time to recover and see where he comes up," Evans said on Wednesday.

"We don’t think [it's serious] but it's probably something that he's going to have to manage across the rest of his playing days. It's just about getting him into the routine of getting into a game [then recovering].

"Robbie Campbell had the same thing after his injury in 2005 and after that it became an everyday matter of, 'How do you manage your knee to get the best out of it?'

"[But] we would hope that he'll be available somewhere across the NAB journey."

Fellow ruckman David Hale had overcome an achilles tendon injury and was set to play his first game for his new club since crossing from North Melbourne, but was pulled from the squad after rolling an ankle at training.

The Hawks sent a highly inexperienced squad to Perth and came away with a narrow loss to the Eagles and a surprise win over Fremantle.

The results see them clinging to the second lucky loser spot to remain in the main competition, but elimination to the NAB Challenge appears the more likely scenario.

They emerged relatively unscathed from the encouraging hit out, but defender Tom Murphy did hobble from the ground with an ankle injury.

"He was pretty sore after the game," Evans said.

"It's just a garden-variety rolled ankle, but we'll treat it very cautiously given the stage of the year."

While most of Hawthorn's stars stayed at home for the NAB Cup opener, Evans said most would be fed back into the senior side in either the second or third week of the pre-season series as the club gears up for round one of the premiership season. 

Former Melbourne ruckman Paul Johnson has been barely sighted on the track since the Hawks threw him a lifeline with the chance of snaring the last rookie spot ahead of Travis Tuck and Nathan Ahmat-Watkins, but Evans said all was not lost for the 69-game player.

"He's had a foot injury carrying over from last year so he's still doing a work-up program associated with that," he said.

"He was obviously a back-up option for us if one of our talls went down over summer … but we're still another month away [from making a decision]."