Essendon star Michael Hurley has been discharged from hospital with the 30-year-old being monitored after sustaining an infection in his right leg last week.

General manager, football Josh Mahoney said the defender would be recuperating away from the club for another week but was expected to make a full recovery.

“The doctors had to assess his response to the antibiotics but pleasingly Michael has been discharged from hospital in recent days and is likely to be recovering from the infection for another week away from the club,” Mahoney said.

“It is too early to put a timeframe on when he will return to the club for training duties, and we will take a conservative approach on his return and wait and see how he recovers from the infection.”

Lively forward Jake Stringer was also sent for scans late last week, with the 26-year-old managing an Achilles injury during pre-season.

“Jake presented with some soreness in his Achilles area last week, which is something our high performance team have been managing diligently this pre-season,” Mahoney said.

“He will continue to build his loads from next week onwards and we’re confident he will integrate back into full training over the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, captain Dyson Heppell is “tracking really well” as he continues a full training program after overcoming a foot injury.

“Dyson has been training really well and we’re really pleased with how he is progressing from that foot injury. He is a true professional and has put in a huge amount of work this pre-season to ensure his body feels good, so we’re pleased with his progression to date this pre-season," Mahoney said.

Mahoney said veteran David Zaharakis was continuing to progress in his recovery from PCL surgery.

“David is making good progress and getting in a lot more strength work at the moment. He will continue to build up his training before we ramp up his loads on the training track," he said.

Defender Patrick Ambrose continues his recovery from a Lisfranc injury, with Mahoney saying the 29-year-old hadn’t progressed as quickly as the club would have hoped.

“We’ve been monitoring Patty closely and in recent weeks he probably hasn’t progressed as quickly, so we will continue to monitor his progressions over the next couple of weeks," he said.

After an injury-interrupted first season with the Bombers, exciting prospect Harrison Jones has completed a full pre-season to date, overcoming a stress fracture in his foot sustained during the 2020 shutdown period.

“We’ve been able to get some really good loads in with Harrison this pre-season and he is really impressing on the training track,” Mahoney said.

“He’s put on some size to his body, too, and has to date completed a full pre-season of training, so we’re excited to see his development into the season ahead.”