Speaking exclusively to afl.com.au, Clarkson said the team was paying the cost of its ruthless pursuit of last year’s premiership.
“We went at it pretty hard in the latter stages of the year as you’ve got to do if you want to win finals,” Clarkson said.
“We had some pretty sore and sorry blokes and we’ve had interrupted starts to the season for five or six of our more senior players.
“All clubs have to deal with that at different stages but probably the late finish to the season for us meant we were a little bit behind a lot of clubs in preparing for 2009.”
One of the higher profile injured players has been Trent Croad, who hasn’t played since injuring his foot in last year’s grand final.
Croad has only recently started to train with the main group and Clarkson said he expected his star defender to be playing senior football at some stage this year.
“He started ball work last week and he will steadily pick up the tempo over the next three to four weeks,” he said.
“We’ve then got to decide if he comes straight back in to our senior side or plays some games at Box Hill to get full match conditioning.
“As long as he is able to tick the boxes and continue to make the progress he has made over the last six or eight weeks then we are expecting him to return to footy at some stage in the next four to six weeks.”
Another Hawk on the comeback trail is ruckman Max Bailey, who is making his return from a second successive knee reconstruction.
Clarkson said Bailey could follow the lead of fellow 2005 draftee Beau Muston, who finally debuted this year after a horror run with knee injuries.
“We picked these young lads with the view of them becoming 10-year players for our footy club,” Clarkson said. “As long as we persevere and they continue to have belief in themselves and their bodies ... we give them every chance of playing a fair amount of senior footy for us.”
Read the full interview with Alastair Clarkson.
