SPEEDSTER Sam Blease, defender James Strauss and veteran Shannon Byrnes will miss the rest of the season, due to injuries.

Blease (ankle), Strauss (shoulder) and Byrnes (foot) suffered the setbacks during Melbourne’s 95-point loss to Fremantle at the MCG last Sunday.

Elite performance manager Dave Misson confirmed the trio would miss the final two matches.

“The prognosis with all of those [guys] is reasonably positive,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“Byrnesy, we thought may have had a stress fracture in his navicular and that’s not the case. He’s just got some joint stuff going on around the foot, which we think will settle. He’ll probably be [sidelined] for two to four weeks. 

“Bleasey just aggravated that ankle that he’s probably done three times this season, so we’ll have a bit of a look at that and have a surgeon look at that. He may or may not need surgery to fix it up. It’s not a major thing and he should get a full pre-season in.

“Straussy, unfortunately, is probably going to have to have surgery on the shoulder, but we’re hoping that it’s not the hamburger with the lot, shoulder reco. We’re hoping it’s more of a minor procedure. He’ll see the surgeon in the next few days.”

But in better news, Misson said key defender James Frawley, tall forward Chris Dawes and ruckman Mark Jamar were chances to return this weekend.

“All trained strongly early this week, so we expect them to train with the group on Thursday and play this weekend,” he said.

Misson didn’t completely rule out young forward Jesse Hogan from playing in this year’s VFL finals.

“Jesse hyperextended his knee landing from a marking contest, similar to Jack Riewoldt on the weekend,” he said.

“Fortunately for Jesse and for Melbourne, there’s no serious damage to the knee. His ACL, MCL and PCL are all intact. He’s just got some bone bruising there at the back of the knee, so we’re going to give that every chance to heal.

“He’s still a chance to play Casey finals, potentially, but the four to six weeks, we think, will probably preclude him from that. We’re just rapt that he hasn’t done serious damage to the knee.”

Misson said midfielder Michael Evans had had surgery on his foot.

“He’s going well. He missed a fair bit of time, because he had a stress reaction in one of his toes, which was probably brought on by him protecting some plantar fascia soreness,” he said.

“Now, that didn’t resolve conservatively, so we’ve decided to have that surgically repaired, which he had on Monday.

“The surgery went pretty well and we’re hoping that he should be back running in about four weeks. He should have a full pre-season.”

Key forward Mitch Clark (foot) and rookie Tom Couch (hamstring), who are out for the season, are ongoing with their rehabilitation.

“Both guys are going really well in rehab. Mitch, in particular, is starting to run fast again and he could potentially do a footy session with the team next week,” Misson said.

“Tommy’s not far away from joining in with the group in footy sessions.”

First-year Demons Dom Barry (groin) and Kiwi international scholarship player Maia Westrupp (knee) are likely to return to the VFL this weekend.

“They both trained really well today (Tuesday), so they should train on Thursday and play on Saturday,” Misson said.