Speaking to reporters before training, Swans coach John Longmire said a decision would be made following the session, but confirmed that neither player would make their return in tomorrow’s NEAFL match, with the reserves already leaving for Mackay this morning.
“Goodesy and Sam Reid will both train today, and it’s obviously good to have those blokes lining up for training and be in that mix for senior selection,” he said.
“We’re not sure that either of them will play this week, we’re unsure about it at this stage, but it is an opportunity to see another hour training session with the senior squad with those two blokes a part of it and we’ll see what happens afterwards.
“We haven’t made that decision yet and the teams need to be in this afternoon, so we’ll make that call this afternoon.”
Goodes, who has battled a knee injury since round 13 last season, completed a full week of training this week and shown positive signs on the track, including a strong performance in Tuesday afternoon’s session at the SCG.
While the dual Brownlow medallist is in the frame to make his long-awaited return, Longmire said a call about whether he will play this weekend would be a mutual decision.
“(Goodes) is really eager to get back and play,” Longmire said.
“He hasn’t played for a long time, and I think it’s since June last year, and he’s had a couple of little setbacks over the summer months.
“He’s now back training and he’s training pretty well, so we’ll sit down with him and he’ll be a big part of the decision making process after training
“We’ll either make a decision on whether he plays in the seniors, or if he doesn’t, it will be another week of training under his belt.”
Should Goodes make the side this weekend, Longmire floated the idea of starting the 331-game veteran in the substitute’s vest.
“We’ve discussed whether he comes in as a sub and whether he looks good in green or not, but we’ll make that decision after training,” Longmire said.
The Swans will be without fellow forward Kurt Tippett this week, who was ruled out of the match earlier in the week after sustaining a broken rib in last week’s Swans reserves match.
Tippett’s unavailability could play a role in the decision regarding Goodes, with the coach suggesting that the club would have been unlikely to play both of the key talls this week.
“It does (help) Goodes a bit,” Longmire said.
“We were probably a bit reluctant to play two of them, but that’s something that we’ve spoken about.
“If we did play the two of them, one of them would have been the sub and I’m tipping that it would have been Goodesy.
“We might be faced with that at some stage down the track pretty soon anyway, and you’ve just got to back that the amount of conditioning work they’ve done is enough to be able to get them to that point.”
“What we do know is that no one works as hard as Adam Goodes in the conditioning sense.”
Sam Reid at this morning's training session at the SCG ahead of Saturday night's trip to Melbourne
