MIDFIELDER Daniel Cross says he has “dramatically” increased his training in the past week to give himself the best possible chance of returning against the Brisbane Lions at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Cross, who has missed the past four matches with a leg fracture, has pushed himself right in contention for round 19, due to his sheer work ethic and ability to leave no stone unturned.

“It’s going along well. It’s coming along like we hoped it would,” he told Dee TV.

“I went and saw a specialist last week and got good news. The bones are healing really well. He was really happy with how it looked on the follow up scans.

“Unfortunately the first part of the process is really slow and quite frustrating, but I’m at a point now where it rapidly increases in improvement. I’m still an outside chance to play this week, but we’ll just wait and see.”

Cross said it had been frustrating not to be able to run for the first three or four weeks, but he put his injury in context.

“There is always somebody worse off than yourself. There are guys who do knees and they’re out for the whole season,” he said.

“There is no doubt it’s not a fun place to be [in rehab] – it’s very much a grind, when you’re off legs … I even had trouble walking properly.

“The case with me is I’m lucky to come back this year and hopefully I’ll play the last four or five games.