Brisbane Lions premiership defender Brandon Starcevich has resumed training after his latest concussion but remains up to two months away from playing.
Starcevich has been sidelined since suffering his third concussion in his last 12 matches when he was injured in a stirring round-one win against Sydney.
It was his second head knock this year after going down in a pre-season match against Adelaide, before returning for the clash with the Swans.
Starcevich, who is a restricted free agent at season's end and will attract interest from West Coast and Fremantle, is back running at training, but Brisbane will take an extremely cautious approach with him.
"The challenge now is going to be he's had four weeks where he's done nothing, so he's detrained," Lions coach Chris Fagan said on Thursday.
"We've got to look after his physical build up now and not let him play until we know that he's right to go from a physical sense.
"He's had a good raft of testing in the last two weeks.
"The results of those are positive so that's great to hear more from a personal perspective for 'Starce', than it is for us (as a club) to be honest.
"But he's been given the all clear, so now it's a matter of just building him up, and that might take quite some time, probably somewhere between six and eight weeks.
"I wouldn't expect to see him back anytime soon.
"A month of sitting on the couch and not doing much is not the greatest thing for an elite athlete."
Fellow defender Tom Doedee made a successful return through the VFL last Saturday after recovering from a third ACL operation.
The Lions will aim to build the former Adelaide player up slowly, after he suffered an ACL last year only days before he was due to make his first AFL appearance for the Lions.
