2011 Preseason Coverage
The club is hopeful that Boak will be fit for the last two NAB Challenge matches.
Boak overcame a groin complaint to have a breakout season in 2010, averaging 23 possessions and a goal in each of his 20 games and a top-10 finish in the Brownlow Medal.
He made a slow start to pre-season training because of a nagging groin injury and had just progressed to full training when he was hit by appendicitis before Christmas.
The 22-year-old spent three weeks on the sidelines recuperating from surgery to remove his appendix and was expected to return to full-scale training by late January.
However his comeback hit another hurdle when he developed knee soreness.
Boak joined his teammates in skills training this week and Primus said he was confident the former first-round draft pick would be at full fitness for the Power's season opener against Collingwood.
"It's not ideal. Trav had a pretty good patch just before Christmas before the appendix ruptured on him. Since then he's lost a lot of weight and also had a bit of patella soreness, but he's been doing a lot of running over the last two weeks," Primus told afl.com.au.
"We'll ease him into it and we're mindful we're preparing him for round one and not the NAB Cup.
"Trav's probably a bit behind the eight-ball, but by the time round one comes around he'll be right to go."
Draftee Ben Jacobs and Norwood recruit Simon Phillips have already been ruled out of Port Adelaide's round-one clash with the Pies.
Phillips was only two weeks away from completing his recovery from shoulder surgery when he fractured his jaw at training on Wednesday.
The small forward was recovering from the same injury when he was picked up by the Power in October.
Jacobs, 19, was diagnosed with glandular fever two weeks ago and was a no-show at the club's Telstra AFL Community Camp in Clare on Monday.
Primus said the defender would miss the start of the home and away season.
"Ben's got a pretty serious dose of glandular fever, so we're not quite sure when he'll be right," he said.
"We'll take our time with him because he's only a young kid. It was disappointing for him to go down with it, but with glandular fever once it's out of your system you can get up and going again."
There was better news for Hamish Hartlett (hamstring), Jay Schulz (hamstring) and Steven Salopek (knee).
Schulz will be available for Port Adelaide's second pre-season game, likely to be against Fremantle next Friday night, while Hartlett and Salopek should be ready by game three.
The Power were able to play 26 players in their first-round NAB Cup games against Adelaide and Melbourne and Primus said he would field another expanded squad in the second hit out.
"We might have three or four guys coming back in a week or two, so we've got to try and manage them in," he said.
"But by NAB three we'd like to make it a lot more fair dinkum in terms of the rules, what kind of team we have and the rotations we use, looking towards round one and the rest of the season."
Primus said the club was likely to put ruckman Matthew Lobbe (dislocated shoulder) on the long-term injury list, with rookies Jarrad Irons and Tom Jonas vying to replace him on the senior list.
Travis Boak is a $394,100 midfielder in the Toyota AFL Dream Team competition
