CARLTON Head of Football Brad Lloyd joined SEN Breakfast to discuss the key talking points coming out of Carlton's pre-season so far. 

Speaking on the injury to Sam Walsh, Lloyd also provided insight on a number of other Blues, including Charlie Curnow's summer, Mitch McGovern move to defence and Caleb Marchbank ramping up his rehabilitation.

On Walsh’s injury:

It was in a bit of match simulation at training: a player came across his ankle and it got caught in that contest. He was able to carry on and finish off the session… it was pretty stable and he wasn’t in too much discomfort, but it was the scan which brought about the concern.

He’s barely missed any footy in his career in general, even as a kid. It’s new to him, but he’s unbelievably resilient in the way he goes about things. 

He’ll miss the first 3-4 games of the season and we’ll monitor him from here, so it’s hard to put an exact round on it. He’ll start his recovery and he’s an absolute pro, so he’ll do that well and be back before we know it. 

On a midfield opportunity opening up:

We all know that Sam has been a sensational player for us since he came to the Club as the No.1 pick. We’re looking forward to seeing George Hewett, we’re looking forward to seeing Adam Cerra and what he can do. 

We’re building some depth and the list is maturing, and a lot of the boys have had strong pre-seasons. They’ll know they need to [seize the opportunity]: Sam is hard to replace, but they’ll be chomping at the bit to get an opportunity as well. We’ve got an exciting couple of weeks coming up.

On Charlie Curnow’s pre-season: 

He’s in great shape. We probably could have played him a fraction earlier last year, but he was held back and it was a fairly conservative approach to get him right. It was great he was able to play those last few games, which really set up his pre-season. 

He’s had a full pre-season and is moving around beautifully. To see him and Harry moving around the forward line is really exciting for us. He’s bouncing around and ready to go Charlie, which is fantastic to see. It’s great for the Club, but I’m thrilled for him as well. 

On Mitch McGovern’s move down back:

He has been playing down back as a third tall. The other thing with Mitch is he’s such a good decision maker and he’s a really good ball user. He’s really smart back there: I really like what I’ve seen so far having a look down back. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do. He looks fit and is moving well so he showed a bit down there.

On Caleb Marchbank’s rehabilitation: 

If you come down to look at training, you’ll see he’s such a good athlete. He moves really well and he’s been doing a lot of running, so he’s starting to get into that ball program with skills and starting to build up his football work. He’s had a really good preparation under our medical team and high performance team.

We haven’t put an exact timeline on Caleb: he’ll have to tick a few boxes with the medical team, but he’s building up pretty well. He’s another one that, with Liam Jones finish up, he’s a proven AFL player and he’ll be important for us when he gets up and going.

On Tom De Koning’s return to training:

He’s tracking pretty well is Tom. He’s been moving around at training, he’s had the red vest on a little bit to avoid contact but he’s starting to add some more contact into his training. He’s building up pretty well, he’s nearly into the full program. 

We’ll see as we approach St Kilda and then Melbourne the following week in the AAMI Community Series, we’ll see where we include Tom as we prepare for Round 1. He’s been going pretty well.

On the team’s open list spot:

We’ve had Josh Cripps and Tyreece Leiu training with us. We’re still working through what we do with that list position. We’ve had a few of our VFL boys - including Michael Lewis from the VFL side - come up and train with us as well. There’s a spot there, which we’ll either use or save it for the mid-season draft. 

We’re still working through that, but as the games start now, it’s a really good opportunity for those boys and others to put their hand up for that list spot. The AFL give a fair bit of flexibility now with those rules, which is really good. We’ve got until early March to make a decision there.