THE INCLUSION of Matt White in Port Adelaide's side that faces Essendon on Saturday night is a risk, says coach Ken Hinkley, but the speedster is expected to run out four quarters.
White tore his hamstring against Geelong in round 11 and has missed the past five games.
His injury compounded the loss of Jared Polec to a stress fracture in his foot, robbing the Power of substantial run and carry on the outside of contests.
Hinkley said White had built up his training load in recent weeks and was even held back from a return to ensure his hamstring was in the best shape possible.
Still, he conceded there remained a real risk of re-injury.
"There's certainly a little bit of a risk but we actually gave him an extra week of training to make sure we tried to control some of that risk because Matty's got a bit of a history," Hinkley said.
"There's a risk of re-injuring for anyone who's had hamstring history ... but that was going to be there this week, next week – whenever we made that decision.
"We're really comfortable that he's ready to go ... at some stage you've got to let them play.
"It's no secret, we've missed a bit of Whitey, a bit of 'Polly' (Polec) those sort of players in our side.
"We go in thinking he's available to play a full game, that's what we have to do, that's why we took the extra week."
More to come
