Bennell will need about 10 weeks to recover from his calf muscle injury, the AFL website says.

The former Gold Coast player is yet to make his Dockers debut.

Bennell suffered the injury last month while playing in a pre-season WAFL match.

Star Dockers ruckman Aaron Sandilands had surgery on Monday after his heavy hit from West Coast opponent Nic Naitanui in a marking contest.

Sandilands is out of action for about six weeks because of broken ribs and a punctured lung.

And Dockers captain David Mundy will be sidelined for Sunday’s must-win match against North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.

Mundy injured a calf muscle at training last week, ruling him out of the Western Derby loss.

At the other end of the ladder, Hawthorn’s hard-as-nails captain Luke Hodge is making a case this week to play against St Kilda this Saturday in Launceston.

Hodge was expected to miss four-to-six weeks when he suffered an arm fracture in the loss to Geelong.

But he wore a brace on the arm while training with the main group yesterday.

As teammate and former captain Sam Mitchell noted, if it was up to Hodge the decision to play this weekend would be a no-brainer.

Hodge is renowned for his toughness and would be pestering Hawthorn’s medical staff about when he will be ready to play again.

“Hodgey thought he could play while he was having the surgery I think,” Mitchell joked.

“The medical staff, clearly they don’t take Hodgey’s opinion into consideration at all, which is probably the right way to go about it.”

More seriously, Mitchell said it was up to Hodge to prove his arm can handle contact work.

“If it means one more [game], then so be it,” Mitchell said.

“It’s just going to be the ball-handling and the tackling and spoiling and the physical side of the game, that he’s never had too much trouble with really. So I think he’ll be fine when he’s right to go 100 per cent.

“I think the physical side of the training will start to step up now.”

-AAP