MELBOURNE's midfield will receive a significant boost for Saturday's game against Greater Western Sydney in Canberra, with co-captain Nathan Jones set to make his long-awaited comeback from a quad injury.
Jones has not played since injuring the rectus femoris muscle in his right quad against the Western Bulldogs in round 13.
The Demons' fitness staff have been patient with the bullocking midfielder's training load ensuring that he returns in peak condition, even holding him back last week to limit the chance of a recurrence of the injury.
Match preview: Greater Western Sydney v Melbourne
"He trained really well today. He's ticked off everything that he needed to do from a kicking point of view," Demons elite performance manager Dave Misson told the club's website.
"He goes in really fit and confident."
Jones trained at a high intensity at Gosch's Paddock on Tuesday, thriving in the stoppage drills that were run with the midfielders and then testing the depth of his kicking during an assessment at the end of training.
The experienced leader will be a welcome addition for a team that has won just two from its past five matches.
Star forward Jesse Hogan had surgery on a broken collarbone on Sunday, with the Demons hopeful he may return at some stage this season.
Hogan has played just eight matches this year after a disjointed season which has included the death of his father, Tony, to cancer, his own cancer diagnosis and now the broken collarbone.
"Jesse had surgery on Sunday afternoon. The surgery went well and he had a plate inserted into that collarbone," Misson said.
"He's recovering OK and we'll have look at him at the end of the week.
"We're hoping that he's going to come back and play again this year, but we're not putting any timeframes on it. We want to assess Jesse and see how he's going and take it from there."
The Demons are still aiming to have Dean Kent (shoulder) and Mitch White (hamstring) available to play this season, according to Misson.
The pair are both listed as six weeks away from a return on the club's injury list.
"We're pushing the envelope with each of them to do that but we're going to keep trying and keep working away with them," Misson said.
"We'll just see how they're going by the end of next week."
Defender Joel Smith did not play in the VFL last weekend after a mishap at training.
Smith, who was elevated to the senior list at the start of the season, was running laps at a solid pace on Tuesday.
"He had an incident with his hip at training last week. He was pretty close to playing," Misson said.
"He did some decent training today (Tuesday), we're hoping we can tick him off on Thursday and he'll play again for Casey on the weekend."
