A WEEK after his season was declared over by coach Dean Laidley, Kangaroos defender Jesse Smith is making a bold bid to be a part of the club’s 2008 campaign.

Recurring hamstring injuries have restricted the 21-year-old to just two games this year, but Laidley revealed Smith isn’t ready to be ‘mothballed’ just yet.

“Jesse Smith is on a strengthening program for his legs and it will be really interesting to see how he comes up from that. Whether he plays again [this season] we’re not too sure,” Laidley said from Arden St on Thursday.

But despite an improved medical prognosis and a strong desire to play again, it seems Smith still faces an uphill battle to gain senior selection.

“It’s probably a bit more positive [this week] because Jesse wants to play and it’s probably positive from a medical point of view, but if I had my way I wouldn’t play him for the rest of the year,” Laidley said.

“I just think: let’s get it right and make sure he plays every game next year and make sure we don’t take any chances, but I’m not the boss in that area.”

In other injury news, Hamish McIntosh is back running this week after injuring his posterior cruciate ligament against Fremantle in round 12, with forward Aaron Edwards also making good progress in his recovery from a broken leg suffered in round six.

“Aaron Edwards is doing the warm-up in our skill sessions now, so we’d like to think he’ll probably play [VFL] in a couple of weeks,” Laidley said.

“Whether he has any influence on the senior side in the short to medium term, we’ll have to wait and see how he pulls up when he starts training and playing.

“It will be interesting to see what sort of impact that the three of them can have between now and the end of the year.”

Youngster Ben Ross is in a cam walker to limit the movement in his ankle after injuring it in the win over Collingwood and will be sidelined for up to three weeks. But Laidley declared Daniel Pratt a certain starter against Melbourne despite being restricted at training by an ankle injury suffered in the same game.