Ben Brown, Majak Daw, Todd Goldstein, Ben Jacobs, Daniel Nielson, draftee Jy Simpkin and Sam Wright are all in contention for game time during the pre-season competition as they near full fitness.
Scott Thompson is the closest to a return and may yet line up in North’s City vs. Country intra-club match on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, rookie Oscar Junker will miss between three and four months of football after breaking his tibia during Saturday’s practice match against Werribee.
He joins Jed Anderson on the sidelines, with the small forward recovering from his recent shoulder surgery.
The number 3 said the injury occurred during a tackling drill last week, but Anderson is confident of a speedy return.
“I’ve tackled Ed Vickers-Willis and taken him to ground and his elbow has landed straight on my AC joint (in the shoulder), rupturing the joint and a couple of ligaments that are in there,” Anderson told NMFC.com.au.
“It wasn’t painful at the start… but once I came off and iced it up, yeah it was painful and I went off for a scan and X-ray.
“Hopefully in the next four to six weeks, I’ll be out there training and back into it.”
Anderson said if there was a positive to take out of the incident, it was that it happened early in the year.
“I’ll do some conditioning over the next week or two, get out of the sling hopefully this week and it should be good from there.
“It wasn’t the best thing, (but) the good thing is it happened early in the year and the next four to six weeks will just be getting that contact back in and getting ready to go running wise and skill wise to be back by round one or two.”
For more NMFC injury news, visit the Anytime Fitness Health Hub
