Carlton expect star defender Jacob Weitering to be fit for a mouthwatering opening-round clash with former teammate Charlie Curnow.
The Blues are also confident they can’t have too many fresh faces – headlined by young gun Jagga Smith – for their clash with Sydney.
Weitering has been sidelined since fracturing his ribs in a nasty collision while playing for Victoria in State of Origin.
But the key defender told Fox Footy he was confident he would line up in next Thursday’s season opener against the Swans at the SCG.
“We’re confident and we’re certainly giving him every chance,” backline coach Ash Hansen said.
“He’ll get through training next week and we’ll make the assessment when we see him.”
Weitering is already putting his hand up to take on former teammate Curnow, who demanded a trade away from the Blues at the end of last season and joined Sydney in a bumper deal.
“Oh, well, it’s a logical match-up, isn’t it? All-Australian fullback versus All-Australian full-forward, historically,” Hansen said.
“And obviously Jacob’s played on him a number of times before, so he knows him pretty well.”
Smith, the No.3 pick in the 2024 draft, appears certain to debut after a game-high 37 disposals and a goal against Geelong after recovering from an ACL tear that ruled him out of his debut season.
When asked what excited him about Smith, Hansen said: “His ability to accumulate is undoubtedly one of his strengths but also his ability to use his fast feet in traffic, have composure to put a teammate in a better position, hit targets.
“He’s the link player between the midfield and forward line which a lot of teams in today’s footy just value so highly because defence is so good.
“So he’s only going to get better.”
Former Swans Will Hayward and Ollie Florent joined Carlton as Curnow headed north and were among nine players who hadn’t played an official AFL game for the Blues to feature in Wednesday night’s pre-season 13.8 (86) to 11.5 (71) win.
Hansen didn’t think Carlton needed to balance how many new faces they fit into their team.
“Because they spend so much time together, even though on the outside they might look like new faces, this group’s been together, they’ve been connecting with one another, building relationships, playing team system for five months now,” he said.
“So we’re really confident that yes, they’ll be new names on paper but the work they’ve done over the summer is gonna help that cohesion pretty early.”
