Essendon GM – AFL Daniel McPherson gives a rundown of the Dons’ overall squad health and some individual updates from the first month of pre-season training.

Injury update: Christmas break

The messaging to the players at the end of the season was pretty clear ahead of their off-season break - they needed to come back in good nick so we could get straight into the football work.

To their credit, they did that, which has enabled us to get a good block of training in ahead of Christmas. Pleasingly, we've been pretty healthy for the large majority of the pre-Christmas period.

Jye Caldwell had hip surgery at the end of August, pretty much as soon as the season finished, but he's progressing really well.

He’s been doing a lot of running and he'll be back into modified training when we first get back, gradually building towards full training by the end of January or early February.

Ben McKay had a small clean out of his ankle just before the Christmas break to alleviate a niggle he had been unable to shake.

He's been fully weight-bearing pretty much straight away, so Ben will be running when we get back and then he'll be quickly integrating into footy drills by the end of January.

Jayden Nguyen just had a little meniscus cleanup in his knee recently. He’ll be running upon our return and will integrate into training pretty quickly after that.

Matt Guelfi’s had an unlucky setback with a hamstring injury during our last footy session of the pre-Christmas block. Given his recent history, we will be fairly conservative with this one, so 'Guelf' will work through his rehab over the break and upon return, will gradually reintegrate into training as he continues to progress.

Gallery | Mt. Buller Camp Day Two

Day Two | Pre-season camp at Mount Buller. Activities included an incline run, hike to the summit and rockwire climb.
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Largely, the rest of the squad are in pretty good shape. Jye Menzie’s now back in full training after his shoulder surgery at the end of the season, which is a good result.

It becomes really important to build that strong base pre-Christmas, given that the lead-in to practice matches, Opening Round and the season itself rolls around really quickly pretty quickly once we get back in the New Year.

The next couple of weeks are a welcome chance for the boys to have a bit of a mental break for Christmas and relax with family and friends, but still keep ticking over physically so that we can hit the ground running when we get back in early January.