Brett Deledio is in doubt for Sunday’s clash against Collingwood and needs to be managed week-to-week Rebecca Williams
Herald Sun
May 14, 2015 9:09AMRICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick has admitted to some doubt over the availability of Brett Deledio for Sunday’s clash against Collingwood, saying the club will have to make a call on his fitness on a “week-to-week” basis.
Deledio played his first game since Round 1 in last week’s loss to North Melbourne in Hobart after overcoming a calf injury.
Hardwick said today the Tigers would wait to see how he got through today’s training session before deciding if he would back up.
“We’re not sure (if he’ll play), we have got to train today and see how that goes,’’ Hardwick said.
“We’ll see how he trains and then we’ll work our way through it.
“He was only scheduled to play 70 minutes, I think he might have played a bit more because obviously the injury concerns that we had.
“It’s not so much the game time, it’s the fact that he has got an injury at various stages that we’re not quite sure about the consistency of how it pulls up after every game.
“Which is frustrating from Brett’s point of view and ours because he is obviously a very important player.
“We just have to take it on a week-to-week basis at this stage.’’
The doubts over Deledio came as the Tigers also await news on the availability of key forward Ben Griffiths, who was concussed against the Kangaroos.
Hardwick was hopeful Griffiths would be cleared to play, but said he still needed to undergo his concussion testing.
He added the club would likely select him and make a final call on Saturday.
“He will obviously have his concussion test at some stage, he will train today and we’ll see how he is,’’ Hardwick said.
“It was a pretty solid knock. That’s in the doctor’s hands, we don’t make that call. We’ll abide by the doc’s decision.
“We have got the eight-day break so from that point of view we will probably name him in the side and we will go from there. We have got until Saturday to make that call.
“He is an important player to us, he was in really good form up until that injury. It probably muddled our forward line as such, but he is having a really good year.’’
Hardwick said Chris Newman was only a “50-50” chance to take on the Magpies after hurting his hip flexor.
After taking aim at the club’s forward line last week for “not getting the job done’, Hardwick said Ty Vickery had put his hand up for selection after encouraging form in the VFL.
“He played pretty well at VFL level last week and he has certainly put his hand up to play again,’’ Hardwick said.
“He was probably unlucky in regards to selection last week, we felt we need some coverage down back if North’s key forwards got out of hand so we played Dave Astbury in front of him in that situation.
“He’ll come up for selection today.’’
Dustin Martin was one player Hardwick singled out for criticism after last week’s 35-point loss, but the coach admitted today he had been harsh on him.
“I think I was probably unfair on Dustin, he made one blue with the ball and he had a pretty good game other than that,’’ Hardwick said.
“He played on (Ben) Cunnington and I thought he beat Cunnigton pretty well. I think Cunnington had 17 possessions, Dusty had 30.
“It was probably unfair to single out Dusty in that bit of play. Unfortunately as a coach we do some strange things when we have a loss.’’
Hardwick said Reece Conca would make a return in the VFL this weekend.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/afl/brett-deledio-is-in-doubt-for-sundays-clash-against-collingwood-and-needs-to-be-managed-week-to-week/story-fniv6drm-1227354654949
