HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson met with star forward Cyril Rioli on Wednesday, but is no clearer on when the four-time premiership player will be back at the club, let alone return to the field.

Rioli, 28, took personal leave earlier this month and went back home to the Northern Territory to spend time with his family, but came back to Melbourne recently.

"I caught up with him on Wednesday. It's great to see him," Clarkson told reporters at Melbourne airport on Friday.

"He's been back in Darwin for a couple of weeks with Shannyn and his family. He's slowly working through some things.

"They've still got some delicate things that they need to deal with over the next little while."

Rioli hasn't played since round four, when he suffered a left knee injury. He has since recovered from that posterior cruciate ligament concern.

He won't return to training for the meantime, and the coach doesn't know if Rioli has plans to return to Darwin.

Clarkson was asked if there was a timeframe for how much longer the Hawks would be without their star forward.

"Not yet. We'll give him all the space that he needs to work things out. We're always here as a footy club to give him all the support we can," Clarkson said.

If and when Rioli does return to the Hawks, the Norm Smith medallist will require a mini pre-season.

"If that was the case (Rioli comes back), he would (need additional training). He'll have been doing some training no doubt. We've just got to work through that as we will over the next week to 10 days," Clarkson said.

Meanwhile, Shaun Burgoyne reinjured his left hamstring against Gold Coast, but Clarkson said he wasn't overly concerned about the 35-year-old being sidelined again.

The smooth-mover was also hurt on Easter Monday and missed three matches before stringing eight games together.

Prior to his first hamstring, Burgoyne had lined up in 107 consecutive matches.

"It was the same hamstring but in a different spot," Clarkson said.

"It was quite a unique event because it wasn't your same sort of mechanism for doing a hamstring injury. It was a twisting type of movement rather than a stretching one.

"We don't know why it's happened by we're not overly concerned either. It's just always when an older player gets a soft tissue injury, everyone links it to retirement unfortunately, but that's the furthest thing from our mind."

Burgoyne is expected to miss about a month.

"We're hoping it'll be a shorter recovery rather than a long one. We've put a four-week timeframe on it just because we don't really know. We'll just see how he goes over the next few days," Clarkson said.

"He was back doing some mobility work already in the early part of this week."

Hawthorn face Greater Western Sydney on Saturday night at Spotless Stadium. The Hawks have lost both their games at that venue.