STAR forward Charlie Curnow is edging closer to his return to football.

Escaping serious knee injury after going down early against Fremantle in Round 15, Curnow is possibly only a fortnight away from wearing the Navy Blue once again.

Director of High Performance Andrew Russell is confident the dynamic forward will be back in action in the coming weeks.

“Charlie’s knee is settling down really well,” Russell said.

“He’s back into a hard, straight-line running conditioning block. He’ll miss the next 1-2 games and be ready to play, which is great.”

It’s a similar story for David Cuningham, who will not be eligible for selection this weekend but has made positive progress in his comeback from a knee injury.

While Cuningham was initially expected to only miss a short period of time, Russell said the speedster will need to complete a training block before being available for selection.

“David’s knee definitely took longer than we initially expected, it has settled down really well now,” he said.

“He has missed too much training, so he won’t be available to play this week. The plan is to get a really good training block over the next week and a half and be ready to play the week after.”

Overcoming his own injury woes this season, Mitch McGovern will be once again be sidelined this weekend as he seeks to improve his conditioning.

Russell is confident the former Crow will be able to return to match fitness with an uninterrupted training block.

“Mitch has had a number of niggles over the whole season, but specifically over the last 4-5 weeks,” he said.

“It has limited his training. We don’t feel like he’s been at the level which we know he can produce.

“We’ve taken him out, he’s undertaking a really hard conditioning block at the moment and he’ll return to play when we feel and he feels like he’s ready to perform at the level we know he can.”