Three Fremantle players face fitness tests heading into Saturday’s Len Hall Anzac Tribute Game against the Western Bulldogs at Optus Stadium.
Both Connor Blakely and Griffin Logue are in the mix to return from a hamstring injury while Cam McCarthy is looking to bounce back from missing round five due to illness.
High performance manager Jason Weber said that both Blakely and Logue trained well on Tuesday.
“Connor’s been training really strongly with the team for the past couple of weeks,” Weber said.
“All things going to plan, he’ll train on Thursday with the group and be available for match committee.
“Griffin is on a similar program and he’s on the up. He trained very strongly this morning and we anticipate him being available for match committee.”
Weber said McCarthy was on light duties on Tuesday as he recovers from illness.
“Cam had quite a significant virus. We held out hope to the last minute on Friday that we would be able to get him on the plane to Canberra,” Weber said.
"Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Cam progressed to some training today and at this stage, we’re looking forward to seeing him into T2 (Thursday’s training session), getting him through that and having him available.”
Weber gave an update on Hayden Ballantyne, who injured his hamstring playing for Peel at the weekend
“Hayden is obviously very disappointed,” Weber said.
“He returned from a very low-level hamstring injury last weekend.
“In the closing stages of his game, he made an extreme speed effort and then a big lunge and unfortunately, that created another injury, a separate injury (to his previous hamstring injury) but albeit a hamstring.”
Weber said young forward Sam Sturt would be given time to recover from a concussion sustained while playing for Peel.
“Sam unfortunately had his second concussion for this season and we’re only in the very early stages of assessing it,” Weber said.
“Sam is just going to progress along a very conservative path to make sure we look after him and get him up and available later in the season.”
Weber said both Stephen Hill (quad) and Shane Kersten (foot) are moving forward with their recoveries.
“Stephen has progressed a lot. Obviously, he’s got a very challenging injury with his quad,” Weber said.
“He’s moving along but we’ve got a timeline on him now, it seems to be in a position to get a really good prognosis.
“Shane had foot surgery a couple of weeks ago. He’s progressed quite quickly from that. He’s in a really good spot and training hard.”
| Connor Blakely | Hamstring | Test |
| Cam McCarthy | Illness | Test |
| Griffin Logue | Hamstring | Test |
| Shane Kersten | Foot | 5 weeks |
| Stephen Hill | Quad | 5-6 weeks |
| Hayden Ballantyne | Hamstring | TBA |
| Sam Sturt | Concussion | TBA |
| Aaron Sandilands | Calf | TBA |
| Harley Bennell | Calf | TBA |
