The vice-captain went down with an ankle injury in the third quarter of the Kangaroos’ loss to Adelaide but is recovering well.
“The scans are what we expected. When we assessed Jack game day, it looked like he had a low-grade ligament injury in the lower leg, just above the ankle,” North's director of medical services Steve Saunders told NMFC.com.au.
“He’ll stay in a moon-boot until probably Thursday and then we’ll see how he looks from there. We’ve got a management plan in place and we think he’ll be able to play but we won’t really know until Friday.
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While the hard-nosed midfielder is desperate to run out and take on the Bombers, there won’t be any risk-taking.
“We won’t take any chance with Jack. If he’s not right he won’t be playing.”
Meanwhile Cameron Delaney will not return this season due to his troublesome toe.
“It has settled down but we’ve decided that we’re actually going to do some minor surgery. He could play and we could leave it until the end of the year but if we leave it until then, it could encroach on the first part of pre-season.
“We’ve made a decision to send him off in the next couple of days. Given his history, we think it’s sensible to do the minor surgery now to minimise chances of anything going wrong later. He’ll be fine for Utah which is good.”
Nathan Grima will put his hand up to return to the North backline this week after recovering well from back soreness.
Injury list - August 13
Ziebell (ankle) test
Grima (back) test
Delaney (toe) season
Warren (collarbone) season
Swallow (achilles) season
Wood (knee) season
Curran (foot) season
