HAWTHORN remains uncertain when emerging defender Will Day will be available as he slowly overcomes his ankle injury, with the Hawks taking a steady approach with one of their leading talents.

But the club is holding out hope fellow attacking half-back Changkuoth Jiath could play in round one after an interrupted pre-season with his knee injury.

Day had a difficult season last year, managing just five games between two ankle injuries, the second of which ended his campaign in round 15. New coach Sam Mitchell said the club wasn't certain when Day will be ready for senior selection but that the focus was building his body so that the injury setbacks were behind him.

"I don't have a solid answer for you [when he will be available]," Mitchell told AFL.com.au this week.

"My philosophy with the injuries is to pretty much tell as close to the truth as possible and he's not doing match play yet but he is starting to do the other training drills so he's getting fitter and we're looking forward to him getting back out there.

"But with a guy like Will Day, he's 20 years old and he's going to be a 10-year player for us so when he gets back we want him to stay back. I think he's only played 16 games so hopefully we can get a significant portion of the season into him."

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Day is a member of an exciting defensive group that Mitchell will have the reigns over in 2022, with Jiath also set to be a part of that line-up after his breakout season last year. Jiath, who has been handed the famous No.9 jumper at the Hawks, has been recovering from the PCL knee injury that curtailed his season in round 17 last year and Mitchell said the club hadn't yet ruled him out of the selection frame for their round one clash with North Melbourne.

"Changkuoth is going well. He's done match play over the last few days and he has that level of excitement that you see when he plays," Mitchell said.

"Last year he didn't miss a beat from a pre-season point of view so this year he had some injuries off the back of last season and been a little bit slower than we would have liked. We're not sure if he'll find his way into the team for round one, we hope so still, we're still quite optimistic with him and he's certainly doing some things at training that gets us excited."

The Hawks will welcome back gamebreaker Chad Wingard for Saturday's AAMI Community Series clash with Richmond after he missed last week's practice match clash against Collingwood with an ankle complaint.

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"Chad's available which we're all really excited about," Mitchell said.

"He's been desperate to play probably for two weeks so it will be good to get him out there this week, I think he's really ready and he got tackled quite hard at training today and he loved it. He was like 'It's good to be back out there doing this kind of thing' so he's an important player for us."