Wingard to sit season on sidelines

DUAL All-australian Chad Wingard is the latest Hawk to be ruled out for the season after failing to show enough progress from his hamstring injury.

Coach Sam Mitchell said Wingard’s best-case scenario was to be fit enough to return for Hawthorn’s round-23 clash with the Western Bulldogs, so the Hawks opted to pull the pin on his year.

The 28-year-old’s hamstring setback in late June came just as he was trying to push for a return from a calf issue.

Wingard has played only 57 games in his first four seasons at Hawthorn since the Hawks gave up a first-round pick and Ryan Burton as part of a trade package with Port Adelaide.

Sam Frost (knee), James Worpel (shoulder), Lachie Bramble (back) and secondyear pair Tyler Brockman (shoulder) and Seamus Mitchell (ankle) had already been ruled out for the rest of the 2022 campaign.

“Chad was doing some jogging and he’s still not progressing well enough,” Mitchell said. “It’s unfortunate for him and he’s a bit frustrated, but he’s just not coming along as quickly (as we would like) and the upside to getting him back for the last game – a risk at that – isn’t worth it.

“We need him to have a really strong pre-season and get on top of this lack of continuity that he’s had, particularly this season, but over the last couple of years.”

Jack Gunston will also miss a second-straight match as he mourns the sudden death of his father Ray but Mitchell was optimistic the star forward would return next week against North Melbourne.

“Jack hasn’t been able to train with us and we’ve had good, open conversations with him and he’s had a really tough week planning a whole range of things,” he said.

“Really pleasingly, he has spent a lot of time with his family and it was good we had him in the club (on Wednesday) and he spoke to the boys and we told some stories about Ray, which was really nice.

“It was good to have him in and put our arms around him.”