Andrew Swallow, Majak Daw update
North Melbourne has close to a clean bill of health ahead of its annual trip to Utah.
Speaking after the club announced a new three-year deal with major partner Mazda, Coach Brad Scott said he was pleased with the progress of his injured captain.
"Utah will be the best place for him to be to rehab his achilles. He’ll do a lot of hiking and walking which is part of his rehab anyway. There’s no better place to do that than Utah."
Swallow’s return to the field is one of the main talking points around Aegis Park in the lead-up to next season. While acknowledging the number nine will undertake a ‘very detailed, graduated program’, Scott admits there is no definitive date set for his comeback game.
"If you talk to me I’m planning for the second half of the year.
"If you talk to our medico’s they are talking about the first half of the year somewhere, and if you talk to Andrew it’s round one.
"Hopefully he’s right and I’m wrong, but we’ll take it step-by-step and take a really graduated scientific approach and get him ready when he’s ready."
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Meanwhile, Daw is considered a ‘touch and go’ chance to play in the season-opener.
"The great thing about Majak is he’ll be running and doing repetitive sprint work in Utah," Scott added.
"A lot of the work we need to do with Majak is around education and some coaching around specific tactics and game-sense training, so we are going to be able to do that.
"We are still going to be able to get a lot of work in and a lot of stuff we wanted to do with Majak that we haven’t been able to do the last couple of years because he’s been incapacitated."
The North Melbourne squad departs for Utah on November 15.
The Kangaroos' draftees will join the rest of the club's playing list almost immediately after being selected at the NAB AFL Draft on November 21.