FREMANTLE remains optimistic classy brothers Bradley and Stephen Hill have enough time to prove their fitness ahead of a challenging round one road trip to face Port Adelaide.
Stephen has been ruled out of Sunday's final JLT Community Series clash with West Coast, leaving him with no AFL match minutes this pre-season due to calf and quad issues.
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Reigning club champion Bradley suffered a quad strain at training on Wednesday and is racing the clock for the season-opener.
"I think Stephen Hill’s got a huge body of work behind him, he’s a proven player for our team and given the amount of work that he’s actually doing without playing games, we’re confident he can have some role to play in our round one team," midfield coach Simon Eastaugh said.
"Brad’s a really professional player in the way that he prepares our medical staff will no doubt put him through his paces to ensure he gives himself every chance.
"As (football manager) Chris Bond said the other day, it’s a minor quad strain so we’ve still got effectively two and a half weeks before round one and anything’s possible."
Aside from the injured Hill brothers and Harley Bennell (calf), the Dockers will field a full-strength line-up at Joondalup on Sunday with skipper Nat Fyfe set to return.
"We’ll certainly have a team that rolls out this weekend that’s going to be more in line with round one," Eastaugh said.
"We’ve certainly got some players that are underdone from a game time point of view so we’ve got a couple of weeks now, with Peel as well, to give them that opportunity for game time (and) build the volume."
The Dockers have employed tall forward Matt Taberner as a pinch-hitter to support Aaron Sandilands in the ruck this pre-season and are likely to continue the experiment against the Eagles.
"Matt, to his credit, has worked really hard on so many facets of his game," Eastaugh said.
"I think we're seeing, from a forward perspective, his one-on-one marking and ruckwork have all improved.
"It’s really about his drive to cement a spot in the side and he sees that as an opportunity for him to be a part of the team."
With Sandilands' protégé Sean Darcy waiting in the wings, many expect that 2018 will be the 35-year-old's farewell season in AFL ranks.
Sandilands has only managed 15 appearances in the past two years due to broken ribs and hamstring issues.
Eastaugh said the decision when to call time on his decorated career was in the 211cm big man's hands.
"Physically his body's been though a fair bit. It’s going to come down to whether mentally he can conjure up the desire and willpower to face up to another pre-season again," he said.
"It’s up to Aaron and he's got a young family, he's got a business. He’s got plenty on his plate but at the same time he's here every day and still enjoying it as much as he did when he first started."
