Hawthorn remain hopeful injured stars Will Day and Changkuoth Jiath will return for the first week of the AFL finals - assuming they qualify.
The key pair will miss the seventh-placed Hawks' crucial clash against North Melbourne in Launceston on Saturday, but defender Jack Scrimshaw was named despite undergoing surgery on a dislocated finger this week.
There was positive news when Day avoided the need for surgery on a partially dislocated collarbone, but there is no predicted timeline on the gun midfielder's recovery.
Day was on light duties as the Hawks trained at Waverley Park on Thursday.
"He's unavailable this week and there's no guarantees after that," coach Sam Mitchell said.
"There's no surgical intervention needed, so he doesn't need anything except to feel good enough to play.
"So how long that takes is up to his body and his healing powers.
"He'll be doing everything he can to make sure he's available as soon as possible."
Jiath will miss a third consecutive match because of calf tightness, which is still limiting the dashing defender to about 75 per cent of his running capacity.
"I thought at the start we were being super conservative not playing him in the first game," Mitchell said.
"He could train but it was a bit tight and it was really a line-ball call around whether he played or not.
"We decided to go the ultra-conservative option ... and then I suspected that by the Monday he would've been fine, but he wasn't.
"It ended up being a bit of a lucky call on that first occasion and now what we're hoping is that after this week he'll be available."
The Hawks-Kangaroos clash marks the third time Mitchell will coach against Alastair Clarkson, with the 41-year-old enjoying a 2-0 record over his former mentor.
And Mitchell's former Hawthorn premiership teammate Liam Shiels will play his final game for North Melbourne before hanging up his boots.
But Mitchell is keeping a narrow focus as the Hawks seek to lock in a finals berth, which looked out of reach when they started the season with five consecutive defeats.
If Hawthorn are upset by the second-from-bottom Kangaroos, they could fall out of the top eight by the end of the round.
"This is as good as an elimination final and we don't want to put our season in anyone else's hands," Mitchell said.
"The final scoreboard will be the only thing that matters for us because we know that if we win we'll play finals footy.
"So the incentive is there to have a good performance. The peripheral stuff, we'll leave it just there."
