‘There’s so much blood’: Wingard may miss weeks, ruckman under injury cloud

Hawthorn forward Chad Wingard is at risk of missing several weeks of football due to a calf injury sustained against Carlton but defender Jack Scrimshaw is in line to play despite an injury scare.

Ruckman Ned Reeves is under an injury cloud in what could be a further test of the Hawks’ big man stocks.

Chad Wingard is nursing an injured calf.Credit:Getty Images

The Hawks will send Wingard for another scan next week after not being able to glean any meaningful readings from scans this week due to the amount of internal bleeding in the leg.

Wingard was limited to boxing and other light work at training on Thursday, and will not face St Kilda on Sunday.

He suffered the injury in the first quarter on Sunday, which may explain his underwhelming performance of 12 possessions and one goal.

“He had a big stop mark in his calf, but it looks like there’s some further damage in there so not sure at this stage probably have a better update next week,” Mitchell said.

“There is a chance he’ll just miss the one, but there’s a chance it could be longer.

“On the scans, it’s quite hard to tell when there’s so much blood around it.”

Scrimshaw trained with the main group and is in line to hold his place in the side after hurting his shoulder blade.

Reeves was sporting a bandage on his right thigh and, like Wingard, was limited to training on the sideline. Should he not be cleared to play, former Magpie Max Lynch would be likely to make his debut in the brown and gold. The Hawks have lost skipper Ben McEvoy long term to a neck injury.

The days of ball magnet Tom Mitchell amassing mammoth numbers in the midfield could be over under the coach’s plan to share the load.

The 2018 Brownlow medallist has collected 40 possessions or more 18 times for the Hawks, including three games where he posted a half-century. In those matches, the Hawks have won nine and lost nine.

The Hawks are not short for inside midfielders with James Worpel, Jaeger O’Meara, Josh Ward, Jai Newcombe and Conor Nash all capable of playing that role.

“It’s not that I don’t want that [Mitchell getting big numbers] at the moment, that’s not what we’re after,” coach Mitchell said.

“We’re continuing to evolve and make progress in our team. We’re still developing team looking to get better each week and despite having a really good win in Adelaide in round two, and then losing on the weekend, I still thought we made progress.

“We need to find ways to not be 18th for centre bounces. But we don’t want to lose our defensive running which has held us in really good stead.

“We think we’re second at stopping turnover scores, so we know that that’s part of the game that is really important, which we’re focused on so far, but we can’t afford to be 18th for clearances for the whole year. So, we’ll continue to evolve.”

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