Asked when he expected Swallow to make his return to the playing field, Scott said opinions at the club differed.

"He's got a very detailed, graduated program," Scott said.

"We'd like to have him available for the second half of next year, but it depends who you talk to.

"If you talk to me, I'm planning for the second half of the year.

"If you talk to our medicos, they're talking about the first half of the year somewhere, and if you talk to Andrew it's round one.

"Hopefully he's right and I'm wrong, but we'll take it step-by-step, take a really graduated, scientific approach, and get him ready when he's ready.

"He certainly won't be playing before he's ready."

Hawthorn big man Jarryd Roughead was the last AFL player to rupture an Achilles, on June 11, 2011.

He made his comeback on April 9 the following season, spending almost 10 months on the sidelines.

A similar timeframe would see Swallow in contention to play shortly after North Melbourne's round eight bye next year.

Joining Swallow on a restricted program in the US will be big man Majak Daw, who had a season-ending posterior cruciate ligament reconstruction on his right knee in August.

Unlike his skipper, Daw will be able to complete some running during the three-week camp, but Scott said his availability for round one of the 2014 season was still in doubt.

"It will be touch and go, I'd say," Scott said.

"But the great thing about Majak's rehab is that he's going to be running, doing repetitive sprint work in Utah.

"And a lot of the work we need to do with Majak is around education, and coaching around specific tactics and game sense training, and we're going to be able to do that.

"So we're still going to be able to do a lot of work that we haven't been able to do with Majak over the past couple of years because he's been incapacitated."

The Kangaroos' draftees will join the rest of the club's playing list in Utah almost immediately after being selected at the NAB AFL Draft on November 21.

Twitter: @AFL_MarkM