West Coast captain Luke Shuey will give himself every chance of returning from injury in the 51st RAC Derby after scans revealed a low-grade hamstring strain.
Shuey suffered the minor setback late in the opening term of Saturday’s encouraging 34-point win over Sydney at Metricon Stadium and was sidelined for the rest of the game.
The 30-year-old will miss the upcoming clash with Adelaide at the Gabba before the Eagles return to Perth from their Queensland hub, but could be back in time for the Fremantle clash on July 19 at Optus Stadium.
“It’s ended up being a low-grade hamstring strain and he’s pulled up really well,” General Manager – Football Craig Vozzo told westcoasteagles.com.au.
“Hasn’t got a lot of awareness on testing and even in some strides that he has done so far this week, so we think it’s probably a one-to-two week injury, and we’re hoping one, and we’ll see how the next week-and-a-half pans out.”
Lively small forward Jamaine Jones also suffered a hamstring complaint after stretching to kick during his second appearance in blue and gold.
“Jamaine had a real breakthrough game last week, played really well for us in a really defined role in our forward line, but unfortunately late in the game as he was stretching to kick a very similar injury to Luke in terms of a hamstring strain,” Vozzo said.
“Again scans have shown that’s lower-grade as well. We think it’s probably a two-week injury, possibly three, but we’ll see how things pan out.”
Emerging tall Jarrod Brander missed the Swans victory with a minor hip issue but could be back in the selection mix to face the Crows on Saturday afternoon.
“Jarrod unfortunately had a hip issue which ended up being lower-back related as well,” Vozzo said.
“But he’s slowly gotten through the early part of this week and we’re confident he’ll do some more full training tomorrow and then we’ll assess whether he can play after that.”
There was promising news for diligent midfielder Mark Hutchings, who has been given the medical all-clear from his iliotibial band complaint and is now building his fitness base before aiming to return to play in two-to-three weeks.
Tasmanian draftee Mitch O’Neill also received positive results from a back scan and is set to return to Mineral Resources Park with the squad next week after recovering at home recently.
“Good news for Mitch. Our doctors confirmed he had a scan of the lower-back area in Tassie and it showed really good improvement and healing to the point now where we’re arranging for him to join our players and staff back in Perth when we arrive back and we’ll slowly build him into our program from there,” Vozzo said.
“Really looking forward to having Mitch back at the club.”
