Stephanie Cain is set to make her return as early as round one as she continues her recovery from an ACL injury.
Cain’s 2020 season was limited to one quarter of football after sustaining the knee injury against Geelong in round one last year.
Her return will give Fremantle a boost on the wing as they look to improve ahead of what is expected to be a highly competitive 2021 season.
AFLW high performance manager Kate Starre said Cain had recovered well following Saturday’s scratch match against West Coast at Lathlain Park and pulled up well from the clash.
“She pulled up amazingly. I looked at her stats post-game and she did really well,” Starre said.
“She had reduced minutes but her output was fantastic. She did really well for her first hit out.”
Starre was also hopeful Fremantle would see defender Alex Williams and midfielder Ann McMahon available to play at some point in the season.
Williams is now fully recovered from the ACL injury that kept her out of the 2020 season but her 2021 preparations had taken a hit due to a wrist injury.
“At this stage we’re not considering Alex as an ACL athlete. She played some WAFLW games during the season and now it’s her wrist injury that really we’re rehabbing,” Starre said.
“That also gives us more time with the ACL and we’re continuing to work on that but Alex’s issue right now is having wrist surgery a few weeks ago.
“The reason we didn’t see Ann on the weekend (against West Coast) was just player management and building her up progressively.
“She’s doing really well and she’s exactly where we expected her to be, if not further along at this time.”
Starre said she was pleased with the overall fitness of the group, with Fremantle’s clash against GWS under two weeks away on Sunday 31 January.
“It’s always nice to get positive feedback after a game and they ran out the game really well, I was impressed with that after a bit of a slow start,” Starre said.
“I think, from a conditioning and preparation point of view, we’re looking pretty good and it’s time to get started.”
