Key Bombers David Hille, Henry Slattery and Andrew Welsh will miss again this week through injury but are all expected to return for Round 18.
Football operations manager Paul Hamilton told The Recovery Room that Hille (hamstring), Welsh (groin) and Slattery (ribs) would be unavailable to line up against the Kangaroos but their recovery is going well.
“We’re hopeful they’ll both be available the following week,” he said.
“We’d love to get David Hille back in the side; that would be a big positive for what we need at the moment.""
Hamilton said that Slattery’s ability to close down dangerous small forwards, like West Coast's LeCras, has been missed.
“Henry’s got a terrific record with closing down the key forwards,"" he said.
""He does it with Rioli, he does it with a number of the key players across the league and whilst he doesn’t get much recognition, I know the coaching group pick him for that reason.""
After missing the Eagles clash, Andrew Welsh is now close to a return but Hamilton said the club would not rush him.
“We want to get this right with Woosher, we don’t want to push anything out there,” he said.
“We would expect him to be back in about another week.”
Meanwhile, the club expects to decide this week if Ricky Dyson will have knee surgery.
“It could be surgery, that’s clearly one of the options. If it’s not he [still] won’t play this week,” Hamilton said.
He said that while the club has been missing key players, injuries should not be blamed for the recent poor form.
“I don’t think we should be using injuries as an excuse; every side has injuries,"" Hamilton said.
""We simply are not playing with the spirit that we like to see and it’s really disappointing.
“We’re hurting, everyone’s hurting, and we just need to see an improvement, that’s as simple as it is.
“It will be up to the whole group, the whole playing group, the whole coaching group to make sure we can turn things around and I’ve got a lot of confidence that it can be done.""
