Geelong coach Chris Scott has ruled midfielder Mitch Duncan out of Round 1.
Duncan has had an interrupted pre-season, dealing with an ongoing calf injury.
“Unavailable for Round 1, but he’s back into training now after really careful management with a calf strain recurrence,” Scott told SEN Breakfast.
“Both of them look pretty minor, but when you get a recurrence with an experienced player, then it’s pretty important to be careful with it, which we have done.”
Key forward Esava Ratugolea suffered an unlucky leg fracture at training and also remains a few weeks away.
“It’s a bit of bad luck for Esava, he got a kick at training on his lower leg where he previously had a fracture in his fibula and had it scanned multiple times and nothing came up, so we were optimistic we could get him back in a week or two, but it’s sort of persisted a bit and we scanned it again and that fracture has shown up,” Scott said.
“Total time looks like being four to six weeks and he’s already done three to four, so hopefully he’s not too far away, but disappointing for sure.”
Midfielder Luke Dahlhaus, however, is expected to be ready to go after dealing with a groin issue.
“He played a half in the VFL last weekend and so we think he’ll be available,” Scott added.
As is Rhys Stanley after the ruckman entered the 12-day concussion protocol.
“He’ll be fine, is there such a thing as a mild concussion? If there is, that’s what he had. He went into the 12-day protocol, but has been training really strongly so he’ll be available,” he said.
Geelong travels to South Australia to take on Adelaide in Round 1.
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