NORTH Melbourne remains confident Daniel Wells will return from injury before the end of the season and has refuted suggestions that some club insiders are frustrated by the star midfielder's reluctance to step up his rehabilitation program.

Wells has not played since round two because of lingering Achilles tendon soreness and continues to train away from North's main training group, having been limited to some light running on Wednesday.

AFL.com.au columnist Damian Barrett wrote that people close to Wells feared he might not play again this season, while some at North felt the midfielder's initial Achilles issues had resolved to a point that he should now be seriously increasing his training workload.

But North interim coach Darren Crocker told reporters the club remained hopeful Wells could return in four or five weeks, and stressed that the Roos were content the 30-year-old was doing all he could to return as soon as possible.

"We're pretty confident you'll see Daniel Wells run around in a North Melbourne jumper before the end of the year, and when we do we'll all be licking our lips because he's such a valuable player to us," Crocker said.

"We know where things are at, we know that he's battling this injury, that he's working hard to try to get it right (and) the medicos are working hard to get it right.

"He's doing everything he can, our medicos are doing everything they can and we're really confident that when he recovers from this injury he'll be ready to go".

Asked whether it was Wells or the club's medical staff saying he remained "a way off" from returning, Crocker replied simply: "Both."

Crocker also confirmed Nick Dal Santo was set to return against Greater Western Sydney this Saturday.

Dal Santo has been sidelined since round two after undergoing hamstring surgery, but just has to get through training on Wednesday and Friday to earn a recall.

"Our conditioning staff and medicos are really confident that he's done everything to be ready to go," Crocker said.

The interim coach said Leigh Adams was not any closer to making a decision on his football future after suffering yet another head knock in the VFL on Sunday.

Adams took a lengthy break from football at the start of this season to overcome lingering side effects from a string of recent concussions, and was playing just his third game back last weekend.

"Obviously he's been ruled out of the VFL this week (and) we've got the bye next week," Crocker said.

"We've just given Leigh the time to consider his options and the club are just supporting him in every way that we can."

Crocker said out-of-favour forward Aaron Black had played "his best game of the year" against Geelong's VFL team last weekend, but needed to produce that type of form consistently to force his way back into North's team.

"He kicked 2.5, was marking the ball really strongly again and providing a really good contest up forward for North Ballarat," he said.

Crocker said the club held a match committee meeting at Brad Scott's house on Tuesday afternoon, with the senior coach recovering well from back surgery two weeks ago.

"He's up and about, obviously he's still a little bit ginger but he's obviously taken a keen interest on what's happening and having bits and pieces with his input," Crocker said.

"He's going really well."