FOUR-TIME Hawthorn premiership defender Grant Birchall remains at least a month away after three bouts of right knee surgery in the past 12 months.
The 30-year-old played the most recent of his 245 games in round 15, 2017 and has been unsighted since.
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson told reporters at Melbourne airport on Friday the left-footer looked good at training.
"He won't play for at least a month, I don't think," Clarkson said.
"He's tracking along well. Because he's had three surgeries, he was unable to condition his legs in that time and he's deconditioned a bit, so we've just got to make sure he does a really, really strong training block.
"If you look at him at training, you don't think he's too far away but we've got to make sure he's totally right because otherwise, he'll break down again.
"He's already missed a significant amount of football and we've just got to make sure when he's back that we've got him for a sustainable period."
The Hawks are coming off three straight losses ahead of their clash with ninth-placed Port Adelaide at University of Tasmania Stadium on Saturday, in what will be small forward Jarman Impey's first clash against his former side.
Returning to the winners list will require improvement from the onballers.
"We haven't won the midfield battle in the last three or four games. Whether that's to do with Tom (Mitchell) or the rest of our midfield, they've been stronger than what we have, the oppositions that we've played in the last three games," Clarkson said.
"If you're losing the midfield battle, you're most likely losing the game. As a collective, we need to get stronger and tougher in the middle of the ground."
Hawthorn is 14th this season for average contested possession differential, losing that stat by seven per game.
Ball use will also be a focus.
"Some of the polish with our ball movement. We've just got to get a little bit better with the way that we use the ball," Clarkson said.
"Coming up against a really good side this week that do use the ball particularly well so we need to defend well but when we get our chances, we've just got to take our chances a bit better than what we have in the past."
