Hybrid tall Callum Coleman-Jones is closing in on a return from a foot injury, while forward Paul Curtis is right to go after being subbed out due to illness last week.

Curtis was lively early against the Dockers on Saturday night, collecting eight disposals and two score involvements, but was taken out of the contest at half-time.

"He had some viral illness the night before we played the game over in the west, woke up the next morning with no symptoms and felt pretty good energy-wise," head of performance Kevin White told NMFC Media.

"He was really confident that he could perform, but because of the heat and the conditions that we had … he had developed a migraine, couldn’t concentrate and felt pretty lethargic at that stage, so we made the decision at half-time to sub him out."

After sustaining a slight plantar fascia tear in a VFL practice match last month, Coleman-Jones is on the verge of a return to gameplay.

"He's had a week-and-a-half under his belt of conditioning with (rehabilitation coach) Daniel Cross and the reconditioning program and he slips in with the main group training on Thursday this week," White revealed.

"So a great little tick-off for 'CJ' this week and we hope to progress him into full training and will assess him to play next week."

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Continuing his recovery from bone stress is key defender Ben McKay. His return date is still to be confirmed but the 25-year-old is trending well.

"He's had a few sessions on-ground and he's back into football boots now and is doing some conditioning sessions with Daniel Cross," White said.

"We envisage now, within the next week, he'll start to progress his conditioning sessions to more moderate loads ... so (that's) pleasing for Ben."

Forward Jack Mahony (shoulder) and midfielders Darcy Tucker (AC joint) and George Wardlaw (conditioning) all saw minutes in the opening round of the VFL season, with Mahony featuring for the first time since injuring his shoulder over a month ago and Wardlaw making his first North Melbourne appearance.

"He (Mahony) pulled up really well, laid some tackles and looked like he had good physicality," White said.

"Tucker - great to just have continuity … he has two weeks in a row now of game load under his belt at VFL level.

"George Wardlaw for his first hitout had to play three quarters of game time which was a good first step.

"We'll look for the next couple of weeks now to progress and increase his game time now.

"All the boys pulled up really well from the game and we're looking just to progress their game time, their exposure and their continuity in the coming weeks."

Young ruck Jacob Edwards and defender Kallan Dawson both suffered blows in the early stages of the reserves game on Saturday but have managed to recover well.

"Edwards copped a pretty big knock to his back, (he) just couldn't function when they tried to get him going on the on the sideline," White said.

"He's actually pulled up really well. He fully trained today in our first light session of the week, so we'd expect him to be cleared to be available this week.

"Dawson just copped a corky in the sweet spot on his quad - non-kicking leg, so not at risk getting into training today.

"He had a really light session today, will main train on Thursday, and again, we envisage that he'll be available for selection this week."