Star midfielder Luke Davies-Uniacke will test to prove his fitness for Sunday evening's fixture against St Kilda.

Having originally been named to play against Melbourne in Round 7, the 23-year-old failed a fitness test on Friday and was replaced in the starting team by Darcy Tucker.

"'LDU' (Davies-Uniacke) had some heel soreness and bruising off the back of the Gold Coast game in an incident where he twisted and his foot got caught in the ground," head of performance Kevin White told NMFC Media.

"His plan will be to do a football function session (on Tuesday) out on the ground, and then assess ahead of full training Thursday."

An incident in Saturday's reserves scratch match against the Saints saw draftee George Wardlaw dumped into the ground knee-first.

While the young midfielder is sore, he has avoided any serious damage.

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"At first he was assessed for his MCL and he had a scan on that, which showed it to be structurally sound," White recounted.

"The main thing with George is that there's a bit of bleeding and bruising around that knee joint that he's dealing with at the minute.

"His plan (on Tuesday) will be to run on the AlterG, get him moving again, get his running mechanics up across the next two days and look to test at training at the back end of the week."

Key forward Charlie Comben went straight to hospital for surgery on a lower leg injury sustained in the first quarter against Melbourne.

The 21-year-old featured in each of the first seven AFL games, but now faces an extended stint on the sidelines having suffered a similar injury to ruckman Tristan Xerri.

"Charlie's injury is similar to Tristan Xerri's from Round 1, so a high-grade syndesmosis with a fibula fracture," White said.

"He's looking at a similar length of probably 10 weeks for his return to play."

Ruck-forward Callum Coleman-Jones and emerging midfielder Tom Powell also came from the field with injury on Saturday and have been ruled out for this weekend.

"Tom had an ankle sprain swell up heavily straight away when he came off the ground," White recalled.

"He's still sore when walking at the minute, so he'll be in doubt for the next one to two weeks.

"Cal suffered a concussion, was still symptomatic yesterday when he was at the club and he'll go through the 12-day mandatory AFL concussion protocol, so he's in the acute phase of his recovery."

Defender Jack Ziebell limped from the ground in the first term, but the veteran returned to play out the match behind the ball.

"Jack had an acute moment with his plantar fascia," White detailed.

"He just had some soreness there, was able to return to the field and he pulled up pretty well, but we'll offload that for the start of the week and look to get him main training at the back end of the week just to test his function."

After sustaining a hamstring strain in the VFL against the Suns on the Gold Coast, young backman Josh Goater is two weeks away, while Xerri faces another 5-6 weeks on the sidelines.