Essendon star Dyson Heppell could play in round one of the AFL regular season, despite the midfielder needing surgery.
Heppell, St Kilda young gun Jack Billings and Sydney spearhead Kurt Tippett are the latest players to be sidelined as the AFL pre-season injury toll continues to grow.
Heppell experienced knee soreness at training and underwent minor surgery on Tuesday.
Club doctor Bruce Reid said the operation went well and they hope he will return to training in a fortnight.
Billings will miss up to a month after straining his right hamstring in the Saints’ NAB Challenge opener against Brisbane.
And Tippett is nursing a right lower-leg injury following last Friday’s intraclub game.
While Tippett will also not play in the NAB Challenge because of the injury to the tibia-fibula joint, the Swans said it should not stop him playing in round one.
“Kurt has had an outstanding pre-season so we don’t expect this setback to significantly impact his readiness for round one,” Swans football manager Tom Harley said in a club statement.
Heppell, 22, is coming off a brilliant season where he took out the club’s best-and-fairest award and was named All-Australian for the first time.
St Kilda have big plans for Billings, who added six kilograms of muscle to his frame after an impressive debut season.
“Unfortunately I gave it a bit of a strain early on in the game – it was about two or three minutes in,” Billings told the club’s website.
“Obviously we’ll just have to see how the hammy responds … but fingers crossed I’ll hopefully be available for the start of the season.”
The Saints will take a conservative approach with the 2013 No.3 draft pick, who suffered a strain in the same hamstring late last season.
The pair join a long injury list across the league soon after the start of the NAB Challenge.
In the last month, Melbourne’s No.2 draft pick Christian Petracca, West Coast defender Eric Mackenzie and Western Bulldogs midfielder Tom Liberatore have all needed season-ending knee reconstructions.
Adelaide veteran Brent Reilly also suffered a skull fracture in a sickening training accident.
Also on Tuesday, Melbourne midfielder Jack Viney suffered a head knock at training that will rule him out of Thursday’s NAB Challenge away match against Fremantle.
