Hawthorn have been dealt a big pre-season blow with star on-baller Will Day suffering a stress fracture in his foot at training.
Day suffered the injury at training on Wednesday with scans confirming the bad news as he prepares for a number of weeks in a moon boot.
The 22-year-old is coming off a breakout 2023 season where he claimed the club’s best and fairest award and Josh Jenkins was disappointed to learn that Day will miss such a large chunk of the summer as he is now touch and go to play in Round 1.
“It’s no good for them and no good for him in particular,” Jenkins told SEN The Run Home.
“This is season five for him and he was going to be hopefully ready to settle down as a really damaging midfielder.
“We do make a big deal out of Round 1 and 2 … but I think to miss all of the pre-season, that's the point … the actual story is not necessarily, ‘Will a player get to Round 1?’, it’s how much training they miss in the lead up to the season as a whole.”
While Day could still feature in Hawthorn’s first game, Geelong great Cameron Mooney isn’t expecting much from the youngster at the start of the 2024 campaign as he will be lagging behind his teammates and opponents in terms of fitness.
Mooney reflected on his start to the 2011 season where he missed an extended portion of the pre-season and how that affected the start of his year.
“2011 was my last year and I always tell the boys that I should have retired at the end of 2010 because my knee was cooked,” Mooney explained.
“Around January we were doing some one-on-one stuff and I got pushed off the ball and my knee buckled under me.
“I ended up missing the rest of pre-season. So I missed about six weeks … I came back and played Round 1, but I was so underdone it wasn't funny.
“The amount of work that players put in now, it's out of control. You used to be able to maybe play the first three or four weeks and you'd gain your fitness that way … but that’s so rare in today’s footy.
“If you are missing big chunks of preseason, you are so far behind it's not funny.”
After finishing 16th in 2023, Mooney thinks it’ll be tough for Hawthorn to make big strides early in the 2024 season without their midfield dynamo in peak condition.
“They are that team that's young,” Mooney said.
“We talked about their midfield yesterday being really one of the best up-and-coming midfields in the competition.
“You just can't afford to have your best player - who has just come off a best and fairest - out early in the season when you're hoping to try from a Hawthorn point of view, to push towards the eight.
“That’s a tough one for them. I was thinking by the end of this year that we could be talking about him as a top-10 midfielder in the competition.
“He could still get there, that’s not a problem at all.
“But you would have liked to see him there Round 1 go, ‘Bang’, right off the bat.”
Day has played 54 games for the Hawks since making his debut in 2020. The young midfielder is signed at Waverley Park until the end of the 2027 season.
Hawthorn kicks off their 2024 season with a Round 1 clash against Essendon at the MCG on Saturday, March 16.
