Hawthorn hopes reigning best and fairest winner Will Day will return from a foot injury in Round 7.
Day’s return timeframe had been unclear since a stress fracture was first discovered in his foot back in early January and the 22-year-old hasn’t trained with the main group since.
But the Hawks have now set a date for Day’s return that would see him feature against Sydney on April 28.
“Today he had a bone scan that absolutely gave us confirmation that the healing is excellent,” high performance manager Peter Burge said via a statement.
“We can now progress Will to running outside at full body weight on grass, then into conditioning before resuming to football training with an aim for match play at Round 7.
“That starts the process of re-conditioning, which we already started doing with the Alter G treadmill over the last two weeks.”
Burge also stated his desire for Chad Wingard to return from an Achilles injury in Round 8.
Changkuoth Jiath (hamstring), James Blanck (knee), Bailey Macdonald (leg) and Denver Grainer-Barras (toe) also won’t feature this week when the Hawks play Melbourne on Saturday afternoon.