CARLTON star Sam Walsh is pushing for a return from his syndesmosis injury in the early rounds as the Blues look to overturn their nine-year losing streak in their opening game of the season.
Walsh, last year's Blues best and fairest winner and a first-time Therabody AFL All-Australian midfielder, went down with the ankle injury in February.
But he has made strong progress in his recovery, with the new joint vice-captain eyeing an early-season return from the first major injury of his AFL career.
Carlton skipper Patrick Cripps said the 21-year-old was making good progress to join him in the Blues' engine room soon.
"He's good. He's a freak. Like anything he does, he does it diligently and he works bloody hard so we'll see him pretty early on," Cripps told AFL.com.au on Wednesday.
"With those syndesmosis and high ankle sprains you never know, it's sort of a dirty word in the footy world these days. A lot of people get them. We'll see him in the first month, when that is who knows. If you ask him, he's chomping at the bit for round one but I'd say it would be some time in the first month. He'll be ramping it up pretty soon."
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Walsh has played 61 consecutive games at the Blues since joining the club as its prized No.1 pick at the 2018 NAB AFL Draft.
The Blues have more coverage this year to manage without Walsh, with new coach Michael Voss telling AFL.com.au last month he wanted the club to be less dependent on individuals.
That was on show last week in the AAMI Community Series, when the Blues beat reigning premiers Melbourne by five points, with Cripps best afield with four goals and 30 disposals. The recruitment of Adam Cerra and George Hewett has added further bulk to a Carlton midfield that battled at times in 2021.
"'Vossy' talks about not relying on one player and it's a team thing and we want to be a connected footy team. I think we saw that against the Dees. Although it was the pre-season you still want to play the right way and play consistent footy and build trust with one another and Georgey and Cerra have come in and been awesome for us and you see someone like Matty Kennedy play and he was unbelievable the other night," Cripps said.
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"Walsh comes back, Paddy Dow has had a really good pre-season, he's ready to go. There's a lot of moving parts but there's going to be injuries throughout the year and we have a bit of depth there now so if they can come in and do their job and play some high-level footy it would be good."
Cripps' performance in the pre-season has seen hopes he can recapture the form he showed when he was named the AFL Players' Most Valuable Player in 2019 when he was also the club's best and fairest winner and an All-Australian. He said he was physically ready for the start of the year after battling injury problems in recent seasons.
"Every year you always look at ways to get better and you feel better athletically and if you get a clean run you feel pretty strong. I feel pretty similar to that year and the way we played last weekend was some good footy so if we can keep doing that it will be fun to play," Cripps said.
Cripps is hoping those changes come to fruition as soon as next Thursday, when Carlton opens its season against Richmond at the MCG. The Blues have lost their past nine round-one encounters (against the Tigers in the past seven, against Port Adelaide in 2015 and again the Tigers in 2014) – the entirety of Cripps' career at Carlton.
"There'll be media around it but it's a new year and you keep looking forward," he said.
"A lot of people want to talk about it but we have a whole new group of coaches, a fair few new players so we'll just go out and play our brand of footy and keep focusing on the first few rounds rather than just round one."
