The Hawks’s forward line has been dealt a blow, while another attacker is no certainty of playing this weekend.
Hawthorn forward Mitch Lewis could miss the final two matches of 2023 after suffering a mid-foot sprain during Sunday’s win over the Western Bulldogs.
The Hawks revealed on Tuesday that Lewis is a test to face Melbourne in Round 23 despite playing out the narrow win over the Dogs.
The setback could force Lewis out of action for the Hawks’ final two matches of the home and away season in what is a late blow to Hawthorn’s 2023 campaign.
“Unfortunately during the game Mitch had an incident where he sprained his mid-foot, he got caught under someone else’s boot and he was trying to accelerate as well in the same process,” Hawthorn high performance boss Peter Burge said in a club update.
“He played out the game and was able to function really well, but he was then quite inhibited and pulled up quite sore yesterday.
“Right now he’s immobile and not doing much, we’re keeping him fairly stationary and we’ll have a look at how much he improves later in the week, so he’s an assess at this stage.”
Lewis’ likely replacement, mid-season recruit Brandon Ryan, is no certainty of playing against the Demons after suffering influenza. Ryan was a late withdrawal from the Hawks’ Round 22 side due to illness and has continued to battle with symptoms.
The Hawks will assess Ryan’s fitness later in the week.
“Last Thursday he reported in sick, he was quite ill and didn’t improve much in the following 48 hours, so we had to rule him out of the game last weekend,” Burge said.
“We got some testing done since and he’s got influenza, he’s improved marginally so he’s an assess for this week.
“We’re hoping there will be significant improvement over the next 48 hours and that he’ll be back with us by the end of the week, we’ll have a further update then.”
Meanwhile, defender Sam Frost won’t play again this season as he continues to deal with a foot injury.
Frost last played for the Hawks in Round 20 and has since been battling with the issue. On Tuesday the club confirmed Frost won’t partake in the final two rounds of the season.
“Frosty had a foot issue that we’ve been managing, he was feeling much better the start of last week and had trained,” Burge said.
“But we went into our main session later in the week and he reported again that he just wasn’t feeling great with his foot.
“He didn’t play on the weekend and we’ve since made the decision that we’re not going to play the rest of the year as well to give it the best chance to recover and set up his off-season and pre-season into next year.”
Hawthorn will be forced into at least one change for Round 23 due to Chad Wingard’s season-ending Achilles injury.
Leave a Reply