Essendon has confirmed star forward Joe Daniher is unlikely to return from injury before the home and away season is up.

Daniher has not played since round seven as he recovers from early signs of onset of osteitis pubis, and Physical Performance Manager Justin Crow said the club will continue to take a patient approach with his recovery as the side surges into finals contention.

“Joe’s taking it slow, but steady. We’re not taking any shortcuts with his progressions,” Crow said on the SKINS Injury Update on Tuesday.

“I’d say that it would be unlikely, given the rate he’s progressing at currently, that he’d return in the home and away season.

“But we’ll just take it week by week and keep progressing him as he’s able.”

Daniher has not been ruled out of a potential return should the Bombers take their place in the top eight.

Matt Dea and Kyle Langford are expected to be available for selection this week after recovering well from their respective head knocks in last week’s impressive 43-point victory over Sydney.

“Matt Dea took the knock to the head when he backed back into the pack,” Crow said.

“He was actually back with it very early, 10 to 15 minutes after that incident – very coherent.

“He’s been symptom-free ever since. He’ll go through CogSport testing, which is a test that compares him to baseline today.

“All going well, we’ll just keep bringing him back through the concussion protocol and he’ll be a chance to play.”

The club had concerns after Langford was felled by a high bump from Swan Zak Jones – who has subsequently received a two-week ban – late in the win as he suffered from pain in his arm, but Crow said scans confirmed no serious injuries for the young gun.

“Kyle was more of a whiplash-like injury, his head is fine with no concussion symptoms.

“We took him to hospital, he had an MRI and a CT to check there was nothing serious going on. Fortunately, there wasn’t. His symptoms are getting better day by day.

“We’ll just be tracking him through this week and looking to see that hopefully he becomes available later on.”

Mason Redman will not be seen again this year after he was sent for knee surgery on Tuesday to ensure the young utility would be ready for a full pre-season.

“Mason will have his meniscus anchored. Normally it’s a 10 or 12-week recovery coming out of that surgery,” Crow said.

“It’s something that we needed to do and we’ll allow Mason to have his off-season and then a normal pre-season.”

Patrick Ambrose has made good progress in his recovery from a significant hamstring injury, but Crow said it will still take time to be able to step up the key defender’s training load.

“Patrick Ambrose is doing quite a high volume of running as he’s able to with that particular injury - seven or eight-kilometre running sessions over the last few days.

“However, we need to wait another three weeks to re-scan that tendon and then we’ll get a better idea about if the tendon has healed and then we can start to take him up to some speed.”

The Bombers will face Hawthorn on Saturday afternoon as they continue the fight to keep the season alive, and Crow said the extra day of preparation following last Friday’s success has proven valuable this week.

“It was a physical game (against Sydney), we’re glad to have the eight days this week.

“We’ll train on Wednesday, which hopefully gives us enough time to get most players up to have a good, high-intensity training session ahead of our next match.”

The first bounce is set for 1.45pm at the MCG.