GEELONG will kick off its 2008 campaign on Thursday night no closer to knowing just when defender Matt Egan will be fit to return to the side.

The 24-year-old was placed on the long-term injury list this week after failing to make significant improvement from the broken navicular bone that kept him from playing in the Cats' triumphant finals series last year.

Coach Mark Thompson said there was no timeframe on the All-Australian's recovery, and believes Egan will come back "only when he feels he can".

"Whenever he feels right and he can run and go through the stages of rehab, that's when we expect him back," Thompson said on Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, I'd love to be able to give you a time and a date but we can't."

Thompson said Egan, who has suffered a few setbacks in his recovery from the troublesome injury, is coping well with the news the club expects his layoff to extend deep into the season.

"He's fine," Thompson said. "There's no rush on Matt, and he's got some really encouraging news on Tuesday from the surgeon.

"We expect him to come back in his own time when his foot has healed.

"We're not going to be rushing him at all because it's such an important bone to heal."

The Cats placed Egan in a fruitless race against time last year in an attempt to have the defender fit in time for the Grand Final.

Since then, he has worn a moon boot for an extended period and underwent another round of surgery to remove a screw that was causing irritation.

Thompson said he was unsure if the rushed rehabilitation during last September was continuing to have a negative impact on Egan's overall recovery.

"I've got no idea, I'm not a doctor," he said.

"In hindsight, it was probably a silly thing to try to get him up. We had to give him that hope, we did, and unfortunately, he had a complication.

"Whether it was due to that, I have no idea."

The Cats will begin their title defence against Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium in Adelaide on Thursday evening.