AVAILABILITY at Geelong looks set to take on a different shape post the mid-season break when a host of players become available after injury-interrupted starts to the 2022 season.
Patrick Dangerfield is the highest-profile member of that group, which also includes Carji Greeves Medal runner-up Jack Henry (foot), Sam Menegola (knee), Jonathon Ceglar (foot), Shaun Higgins (soreness), Max Holmes (syndesmosis), and Esava Ratugolea (ankle).
However, there is no certainty around Sam Simpson’s return from a concussion suffered at pre-season training in February.
“Sam Simpson’s the harder one,” coach Chris Scott said.
“This is where it’s hard to be consistent when it comes to a layperson – as a coach – talking about a really highly technical and complex area like concussion.
“You can have a guy like Jed Bews, who was seemingly unaffected after a couple of days, or even a day, but has to miss two weeks in the protocol.
“Or another guy like Sam, who had a bit of a (concussion) history, got a knock at training, didn’t seem too bad, but (he) just hasn’t recovered quickly enough.
“Once that continued on for a period of weeks, then it became clear it needed to be a really, really slow and cautious program with Sam.”
Scott said Geelong was taking a bigger picture approach with the 23-year-old, who has played just 19 games since debuting in 2017.
“We’re more concerned about – and I don’t want to overplay this because Sam’s going well,” he said.
“But, we are more concerned as a footy club about him and where he’s going to be in the rest of his life than we are about him playing footy for the next couple of weeks.
“Now, he’s running around and training and things are going well from what I can see.
“But, you shouldn’t think it’s a bad situation if we hold him back a little bit longer.
“It should be as interpreted as we have pivoted from, ‘when can we get him back into footy?’ to ‘we’ve got to make sure he’s perfectly recovered before we put him at risk.”
Twitter: @tom_king79
