ANDREW McLeod is recovering so well from his post-season knee surgery, that he is still a chance to play in the Indigenous All-Stars versus Adelaide clash in Darwin in February.

McLeod, 32, was all but ruled out of the clash in the top end after undergoing knee surgery in October, but he has recently run himself back into contention.

The Indigenous games record holder began running on Monday and Adelaide’s physical performance manager Stephen Schwerdt didn’t rule out a dreamtime comeback for the dual Norm Smith Medallist.

“It’s an interesting one. We’re not sure if Andrew will be available for the Darwin game,” Schwerdt said on Wednesday.

“It would be a pretty big stretch to get him ready by then, but time will tell. This is about the time we expected him to start running again. He could’ve run earlier, but we wanted to make sure he got ample rest so that the healing could take place.

“It’s hard to put a time frame on the next period of his rehab. It will just be a question of how quickly he can progress. Going on his past history when he’s come back from knee injuries, he tends to progress quickly because he keeps himself in good shape.”

McLeod, who missed two games with the knee injury last year, has learned to manage the degenerative condition since it first surfaced in the late 1990s.

Schwerdt said the decorated defender’s preparation, which has comprised mainly of swimming and bike work, was not that different to usual.

“Andrew’s not much behind [the rest of the group]. His normal pre-season protocol is to do a lot of his conditioning work on the bike to minimise the stress on his knee, which is exactly what he’s done this time around,” he said.

“He’s probably missed a fair bit of footy work, but for a guy of his experience, he’ll pick it up pretty quickly.”

McLeod, who is on track to break Adelaide’s games record this year, has also spent time sculpting his upper-body over the summer and the results are evident in his bigger-than-usual biceps.

“Andrew’s put on a couple of kilograms in muscle and is bigger than he has been in previous years,” Schwerdt said.

“He’s really lean, as you can tell by looking at him, so the weight he’s put on has been muscle mass and that won’t do any harm.”

Schwerdt was also confident there had been no permanent harm done to gun recruit Patrick Dangerfield during the teenager’s recent car accident.

Dangerfield, who only joined his teammates full-time in November, was restricted to walking laps last week after suffering whiplash while a passenger in a taxi.

“Patrick has been training this week. He’s had a bit of residual soreness from the accident, but he’ll be okay,” Schwerdt said.

“It was a bit unfortunate for him and cost him a few days training, which he probably didn’t need. Hopefully, he can get back into some regular training because after starting late with us, straining his hamstring and then this, he’s missed a bit, but he’ll be back in full swing soon enough.”

Prized No.10 draft-pick Phil Davis (shoulder) and tall defender Will Young (groin) are also expected to be close to full, competitive training within a month.

Classy forward Jason Porplyzia (shoulder) is also on track for round one of the regular season.