YOUNG-gun Jesse Hogan is progressing strongly from his back injury, according to his forward line coach Daniel McPherson.

The still yet-to-debut Demon has missed the entire home-and-away season with a back injury after playing in Melbourne’s NAB Challenge loss to Geelong in Alice Springs, way back in February.

But elite performance manager Dave Misson told Dee TV that Hogan was doing “one-on-one skills” at the moment and was now only three to four matches away from returning.

McPherson said he was hopeful Hogan could gain a taste before the season’s end.

“He’s been back training and he’s starting to build up his conditioning, so he’s probably still best case scenario three weeks or so away from playing,” he told melbournefc.com.au. 

“He hasn’t joined in the skill training yet, but hopefully that’ll be the end of this week, but speaking to the conditioning guys, he’s attacked that side of it really well in the last couple of weeks.

“So it’s a bit of a build up and he’s had a really long layoff, so there is no rush with him and if he has a minor setback here and there, we’ll just cop that as it comes.

“He’s approached everything really well in the last few weeks and he’s training as hard as his body allows him to at the moment. We just hope that he’s able to get up and going and he’ll squeeze a couple of games in towards the end of the year.”