GEELONG defender Zach Tuohy may not be seen in action until May as he continues to recover from off-season knee surgery.
Tuohy went under the knife following the Cats’ elimination final exit at the hands of Melbourne, but coach Chris Scott says he still he has some work to do to prove his fitness.
“A little bit longer than previously thought, in terms of his return,” coach Chris Scott said. “But, in the first month to six weeks, we think.
“The harder part to answer is how that translates into him coming into the AFL team.
“We’re pretty confident he’ll be healthy and available to play, but he’s missed a bit of training as well.
“So all of those things have got to go into the mix.”
Scott was keen to point out Tuohy, who had played 138 consecutive games up until the end of last year, hasn’t suffered a setback.
“I hope that’s not the headline because I don’t think that’s accurate,” he said.
“What we’re given from our medical staff is a really broad return to play schedule that’s subject to change on an almost daily basis. When that stretches out a little bit, we’re not surprised by it.
“But there hasn’t been an incident. It’s just a case that he progresses his rehab when his knee lets him, and it just hasn’t let him do it as quite as quickly as we would have liked.
“I think it became a bit more unrealistic for us because Zach’s played a million games in-a-row and was determined to get up for Round 1.
“As it turns out, that was a really, really ambitious goal and we just weren’t prepared to push the rehab just so he could start the season.
“We wanted to finish the last 20 games in really good shape.”
Click below to listen to Chris Scott’s media conference in its entirety.
https://audioboom.com/posts/7213603-geelong-afl-chris-scott-march-26
Twitter: @tom_king79
