HAWTHORN remains unsure how long important key forward Mitch Lewis will miss with his knee injury, with a "best case scenario" slated for the goalkicker's return after a training mishap.
Lewis suffered a sprain of his anterior cruciate ligament in January, with the 24-year-old sidelined since but avoiding surgery for the injury.
He enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2022, booting 37 goals from 15 games to spearhead the Hawks' attack. But it remains unclear when Lewis will be available in 2023, with coach Sam Mitchell saying he would miss at least the first month of the season.
"He's up and down, I would say. He's running a bit already but then he's had a little bit of swelling in it so then he has to back off," Mitchell told AFL.com.au.
"If things go really well, I think potentially he'll be available for round four or five as an absolute best case scenario. There's nothing that will speed it up. And any setbacks that he has, which is likely, will knock him back a week or two weeks or a month or two months.
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"At this stage he just goes day by day and tries to get as much improvement as he can and we're not going to rush him. He's an important player and if you get a knee wrong then it's 12 months out of the game so we'd like to avoid that."
Lewis is regarded as one of the club's emerging leaders – Hawthorn is closing in on an imminent captaincy announcement – with Mitchell praising his capacity to stay involved while recovering from the injury.
"What's been impressive about him is his full commitment – he's out on the track, he's talking to the coaches, he's still doing tape, he's coaching some of the other key-position forwards and he's been really committed to what we're about still," the second-year coach said.
Lewis' injury, on the back of Jack Gunston's exit to Brisbane last trade period, makes for a new-look tall forward mix for the start of Hawthorn's season, with Mitchell eyeing a number of options to step in and help fill the void.
"We've only got one Mitch Lewis, so we're not going to replace Mitch Lewis, we just have to try to find a different way that fits within our sustainable system. You don't want to do something that you're just going to have to throw out in 10 weeks' time, you want to have something that you think can be a way forward," he said.
"It's going to create an opportunity, whether that's for Fergus Greene or Emerson Jeka who has gone back into the front half, or Jai Serong, who has had a really good summer. He rolled his ankle last week and had a bit of a setback but there's going to be opportunities for those guys that perhaps weren't going to be there. You have to look at the positive as well."
Hawthorn faces Geelong next Thursday in match simulation at GMHBA Stadium before taking on Collingwood on Thursday, March 2 in Tasmania in its final practice game before round one.
