Nick Larkey is taking a cautious approach as he overcomes a “sore spot” in his foot, with one target in mind – round two.

The key-forward says he pulled up sore at training “a couple of weeks ago”, but there were no concerns, with the club taking a risk-free approach leading into a return to footy.

“I told the physios and they backed off a bit of training,” Larkey told North Media.

“But I’ve still been doing a bit of running and conditioning, and hopefully next week should push my case for round two.”

Larkey said a whole-season approach was front-of-mind, as he prepares to play a vital role again, alongside Ben Brown.

“When it’s all taped up it’s (his foot) all fine, it’s just when it’s not taped they (the physios) don’t want it deteriorating if I do a heap of load on it,” he said.

“It’s a bit of risk vs reward; they might as well take the approach of being safe now. I still get my conditioning level up, but just miss out on some of the main training stuff.

“The physios and conditioning staff are doing everything to make sure that I can be back for then (round two). It’s just a load-management sort of thing, that they don’t want to push it too far and they’re just being cautious with it.

“I’m hopeful that round two’s the plan.”

Watch the Nick Larkey interview below.