Kayne Turner will miss the start of the season with North taking a conservative approach to his recovery from a fractured bone in his foot.
The small forward pulled up sore following North’s loss to the Dogs in the Marsh Community Series, according to GM Football, Brady Rawlings.
“We sent him off for scans the following Monday which revealed he’d sustained a medial sesamoid fracture in the ball of his foot, under his left big toe,” Rawlings said.
“We feel that a conservative rehabilitation approach is the best course of action for now to let the bone heal.
“Because of the nature of the injury, we hope to see Kayne just after the bye in June.”
Turner, 24, has played 79 games, and is one of the best pressure players in the league.
“He’s a big loss, but we’ll be looking to our other small forwards to step up in his absence,” Rawlings said.
“It means there’ll be more opportunities for the likes of Jack Mahony, Taylor Garner, Lachie Hosie, Cam Zurhaar and Tarryn Thomas.”
Meanwhile Rawlings confirmed Luke Davies-Uniacke has also been sidelined.
“Luke’s been battling a pubic overload issue,” he confirmed.
“It’s extremely disappointing because fitness-wise he was setting himself up for a big year.
“We all know what ‘LDU’ is capable of so we’ll put him in a rehabilitation program to build him back up to full strength when the time is right.”
The 20-year-old won’t run for a period of weeks with ongoing tests and assessments to determine his return-to-training date.
“We’ve decided to take an aggressive off-load approach with Luke given his age,” Rawlings said.
“When he’s clinically ‘all-clear’, we will re-load him conservatively and start him on a running program.”