Brent Prismall’s highly anticipated return to senior football is close with the 22-year-old expected to make his debut for Essendon’s VFL affiliate, the Bendigo Bombers, in Stawell this weekend.
It is a significant step forward in his rehabilitation from an ACL injury sustained playing for Geelong during finals last year.
Essendon football operations manager, Paul Hamilton, said the club would monitor Prismall’s training during the week but a VFL berth appears imminent.
“We expect Prismall to come back and be playing in the VFL this week if all things go well,” he said.
“The medical team have been really happy with the way he has trained and said that if he trains really well this week he can get his first run up at Bendigo.""
Hamilton said Prismall will gradually increase his game time at VFL level before a return to AFL mid-way through the season.
“He won’t play a full game, he’ll just get some gradual improvement on his game time the next few weeks before we consider him at AFL level.
“We’d being thinking mid-season for AFL if he is playing VFL this week.
“He is a terrifically fit guy anyway and has done a lot of aerobic type work, which is different to football, so we’ll just have to see how he travels.”
Debuting in 2006, Prismall played 25 senior games for the Cats and was traded to the Bombers for pick 39 in the 2008 NAB National Draft.
