Star trio Josh Kennedy, Jack Darling and Jeremy McGovern are set to play should West Coast’s season-opening clash with Melbourne get the green light to go ahead.
Meanwhile, emerging forward-ruck prospect Bailey Williams (hamstring tightness) is also likely to put his hand up for a possible debut against the Demons.
Kennedy hurt his elbow during the Eagles’ second Marsh Community Series meeting with Fremantle but has been training with strapping since and will be good to go this Sunday.
“He’s got good strength and range, and he’ll be available to play this week,” general manager football Craig Vozzo told westcoasteagles.com.au.
Kennedy dealt with a similar but more severe ligament issue during the 2015 campaign, when the now 32-year-old spearhead claimed the first of his two Coleman Medals with 80 majors from 25 games.
“In 2015 it was a different type of ligament, but a similar process in terms of rehab. It was worse than it is now (and) in a different part of the elbow. He’s going really well,” Vozzo said.
McGovern played slightly more than a half against the Dockers on March 7 in his comeback from heel surgery and the defensive pillar backed up in last Friday’s intraclub with a strong performance.
“Gov is tracking really well. Last Friday he played exceptionally well in our intraclub, which gave him great confidence,” Vozzo said.
“We were always confident in his build, but it gave him great confidence to get amongst the boys and have a good hitout.
“He’ll be available to play assuming he gets through Thursday (main training), which we think he will.”
Darling has been managed conservatively since suffering a cheekbone fracture at training but he also impressed in the intraclub.
“I think he kicked a few goals and ran around really well. It was good to get a bit of match practice in readiness for round one and he’ll be available to play,” Vozzo said.
Williams has been a bolter this summer and is in the mix to partner Nic Naitanui in the ruck against Melbourne giant Max Gawn.
“So with Bailey our strength and conditioning boys have confirmed he ticked off his speed work last Friday and he’s been in main training this week,” Vozzo said.
“Assuming Thursday goes well, he’ll be available for selection as well.”
Fellow young tall Oscar Allen is another Eagle progressing well after an ankle setback.
“He’s now been signed over from a medical point-of-view, so it’s purely strength and conditioning and getting his loads right and his conditioning up to an AFL standard, so it won’t be too long before he’s playing,” Vozzo said.
In other news, defender Liam Duggan (sprained thumb) is fine to play, while back pocket Tom Cole (broken thumb) has started running again and small forward Jarrod Cameron (pubic bone stress) is close to resuming running.
“If that goes well we’ll gradually build him up over probably a month to play, but it will be symptom-based,” Vozzo said of Cameron.
Luke Foley (pubic bone stress) has joined in more training over recent weeks and is not far from returning to play.
Meanwhile, Vozzo said the entire club was taking every precaution to decrease the risk posed by COVID-19.
“The coronavirus has thrown up a whole lot of challenges across the whole AFL community,” he said.
“At club level we’ve just used our best efforts to try to quarantine risk within our building and also educating our players around hygiene and different levels of social isolation that they should be taking in their daily life.
“Our doctors have been terrific through the process, our staff have been terrific through the process, the whole club has been wonderful in trying to achieve that outcome and we’re confident we’re in a good space to the degree you can control this sort of thing.”
