MELBOURNE will be without big man Braydon Preuss for a second consecutive week, as the 23-year-old continues to recover from his shoulder injury.
Preuss suffered the knock during his debut match for the red and blue in Round 4, and after playing through the pain the following game against St Kilda, he requires one more week to allow it to heal.
Co-captain Jack Viney will also be sidelined for the Dees’ clash with Hawthorn after copping a brutal bump from Sydney Stack last Wednesday night.
But it’s better news for Alex Neal-Bullen who is clear to play despite spending some time down the race against Richmond with a corked hamstring.
Elite Performance Manager David Misson provides an update on all injury list changes below.
Injury List
Alex Neal-Bullen | Hamstring – Available
“He just received a corky in a bad spot and that shut his hamstring down. But he’s pulled up pretty well and will be available to play.”
Braydon Preuss | Shoulder – 1 week
“He’s not quite there yet, so he’ll need another week. It was quite a significant injury and he did really well to get up for the St Kilda game, but playing in the second half under duress probably sent him backwards a little bit. We’re really confident he will be OK next week though.”
Jack Viney | Shoulder – 2 weeks
“He’s improving every day. Two weeks is the most likely scenario – getting up for the West Coast game. We’ll just keep checking him as he progresses. He’s obviously a player who needs full capacity with his shoulders, with all the tackling and bumping he does, so we want to send him in at 100 percent.”
Steven May | Groin – 3-4 weeks
“He’s going really well. He ran at 90 percent on Monday. He’s increasing his speed and his skills, so we’re hoping that he’s almost over the hump. We’ve just got to get a bit of training into him now, so he’s three to four weeks away.”
Jake Lever | Knee – 3-4 weeks
“He’s going very well. He’s doing his first full session with the group today, so he’s now three to four weeks away.”
Mitch Hannan | Knee – 3-4 weeks
“Mitch is doing a fair bit of work fitness-wise and starting to do more and more skills. He’s tracking really well and shouldn’t be too far away now.”
Corey Maynard | Hip – 3-4 weeks
“He had an incident with his hip, and it was the same one he has had trouble with in the past. It’s still quite sore so he won’t play this week or next week, so we’re looking at giving him a few weeks to recover.”
Jay Kennedy Harris | Knee – 3-5 weeks
“Jay is well ahead of schedule. He’s training and running really well and will start to do a bit of training with the group next week.”
Aaron vandenBerg | Foot – TBA
“Vanders is still on the AlterG treadmill. We’re pretty positive about him, as he’s had a good couple of weeks, but he hasn’t started running outside just yet, so we’ll have to keep monitoring him.”
Joel Smith | Groin – 6-8 weeks
“His recovery is quite slow, as it was a significant groin injury. He’s still doing some decent volume work outside, but after a reassessment, he’s going to be six to eight weeks.”
Neville Jetta | Knee – 10-12 weeks
“He’s a week post-operation, so it’s really about getting his swelling down, which is going well. He’s walking around with just one crutch, so he’s probably a little bit ahead of where we thought he would be, but we’re still looking at 10 to 12 weeks.”
Kade Kolodjashnij | Concussion – TBA
“We’re taking it pretty slowly with Kade because he’s obviously had a pretty solid history with these types of concussions. He’s still not out running just yet but he’s doing some work in the gym on the spin bike. He’s going to be a little bit longer than we hoped but he’s going OK.”
Guy Walker | Shoulder – Indefinite
Aaron Nietschke | Knee – Season
