CONNOR ROZEE has been cleared to play in tomorrow’s practice game against Adelaide at Alberton Oval.
The forward saw a specialist in Sydney on Thursday for an opinion on a new issue with a joint in his foot.
The issue is separate to the plantar fascia injury which saw him miss a handful of games last season.
At a press conference on Friday, General Manager – Football, Chris Davies told reporters the club would continue to monitor and manage the issue, but it would not impact his availability to face the Crows.
“We’ll work on what that looks like over the next couple of weeks but as you saw today, he moved really well and he’ll play tomorrow,” he said before explaining the issue.
“It’s the same foot but a different issue. It’s up around his ankle. These things can come up from time when you’ve had a previous issue and you’re potentially overcompensating for that so we’ve got to get him back feeling right, which he is at the moment, and we’ll put a management play together over the coming weeks to see how we go for this season.
“Clearly going into games he’ll train a lot less, which means there’ll be significantly less load, but whatever happens we’ll have to manage that throughout the season.”
Rozee pulled up sore after the club’s internal trial a fortnight ago but cannot remember any specific incident that may have caused the new injury.
Davies said the young forward trained well on Friday and moved freely.
“It’ll be something, like with all of our players who have issues, we’ll just have to manage it accordingly,” he explained.
“We’re aware that there’s an issue that we’ll have to manage into the season. Whether that looks like he’ll have to miss games at some point, we’ll have to broach that when it comes but he’s trained really well today and he’s going to play tomorrow.
“We’re really confident in our medical staff and certainly the specialist opinion that for right now it’s play on and we’ll see how things go in the coming weeks.”
Davies confirmed skipper Tom Jonas (managed), forward Robbie Gray (lip) and midfielder Sam Powell-Pepper (hand) would sit out the game but the side was otherwise full strength.
“Rob copped a head knock in the game the other day which split him open between his nose and his upper lip so we’ll give him time to recover and Sam Powell-Pepper hurt himself at training as well, where he has broken a minor bone in his hand, which was significantly swollen,” Davies said.
“We had to release that from a surgical standpoint.
“Unfortunately, Sam will miss the next couple of games, which I imagine puts him behind the eight ball for round one but it’s just something we’ll have to deal with when it comes.
Davies said Jonas’ load was being managed and he would instead feature in the AAMI Community Series game against the Crows next weekend.
Saturday’s double header SANFL and AFL games will be live streamed from 8:30am and 11:00am respectively via portadelaidefc.com.au or the Official Port Adelaide mobile app.
