LUKE Hodge, Xavier Ellis, Max Bailey and Chance Bateman could all return to the Hawks senior side in the coming weeks according to Coach Alastair Clarkson.
All four players have missed large portions of the 2012 season due to injury, with Hodge and Bateman managing just two matches so far, while Bailey and Ellis are yet to make a senior appearance for the Hawks.
Clarkson remains confident, however, that all four players can have an impact for the Hawks in the tail end of the season, but all four must work on their match conditioning in the next month.
“Those guys are seriously in our plans for the latter part of the season,” Clarkson said at the Ricoh Centre on Friday.
“(But) the bottom line is, they won’t be if they haven’t got good match hardened bodies.
“That’s what we need to do over the next two weeks to a month, to get those guys match conditioned and to give ourselves great selection flexibility in the latter part of the year.”
Skipper Hodge will line-up for the Club’s VFL affiliate Box Hill on Saturday at Victoria Park. It will be his first appearance at any level since Round 6 of the AFL.
Bateman will line-up alongside Hodge, in his first match since sustaining a shoulder injury in the VFL earlier this year.
Clarkson said Bateman is expected to ramp up his fitness quickly, given he has been able to build on his fitness given he was sidelined with a shoulder injury.
“Bateman will play his first game back for about eight weeks following a shoulder injury,” Clarkson said.
“Because it’s a shoulder, he’s been able to do a fair amount of running so I’d expect he’d get match conditioned pretty quick.”
Xavier Ellis is expected to make his return next week, after overcoming a knee injury.
“He’ll just need one more week and he’ll be right to go,” Clarkson said.
Kate Salemme is a member of Hawthorn Football Club’s Digital media team reporting exclusively for hawthornfc.com.au from the Ricoh Centre.
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