LIONS Elite Performance Manager Brett Burton says he is hopeful Claye Beams will return to the team this week ahead of the Club’s clash with Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
Beams was a late withdrawal from Brisbane’s line-up to take on Port Adelaide last weekend and was replaced by James Aish.
“Claye just irritated his knee in the main session during the week, so just precautionary we took him out. Hopefully he’ll be available this week.”
Burton said a hamstring injury will keep defender Dan Merrett on the sidelines a little longer.
“It’s a frustrating one with Dan, he’s obviously been out since Round 2, he just has a nerve that’s been irritated at the moment. It’s just about settling that down and making sure we don’t aggravate it. It’s indefinite at the moment and we’re looking at some conditioning and how we can get him up and going.”
Jono Freeman and Trent West have suffered further setbacks in their return to football.
“It’s really unlucky for Westy, obviously being out for 12 months with that ACL, he was due back last week. He aggravated his knee in a contest in the main training session, he’s had a scope this morning so we’ll expect him to be out for the next four or five weeks.
“Jono hasn’t played a game this year and was due back in the Reserves last week and rolled his ankle in a development session, just a really unlucky one and did it pretty bad. Positive is it doesn’t require surgery so we’ll treat it conservatively and he’ll be out 6-8 weeks with that.”
Sam Mayes is progressing well in his recovery from an ankle injury that has kept him out since round three.
“Mayesy’s back running again which is good, just needs to go through his running progressions and he’ll be back into training. We expect him to be back with the main group next week and hopefully available for round nine.”
