Hayden Young: Injured Fremantle Dockers star felt better than he was expecting in return to on-field running
Fremantle star Hayden Young says his body feels better than expected after returning to on-field running in a significant milestone in his bid to get back into the AFL side in the lead-in to finals.
Young hit the training track for a jog on Tuesday for the first time since undergoing surgery on his right hamstring earlier this month.
It was a key marker for the gun midfielder as he eyes a late-season comeback, with the club listing his estimated return date as 8-9 weeks away. That would put the 24-year-old in the frame to potentially feature in the final month of the home-and-away campaign.
Young said he was buoyed by how he had pulled up after ticking off the box to get back moving.
'I felt really good,' Young said on 96FM.
'It's a good little progression, and hopefully, from now we can just get moving a bit quicker.
'It actually felt better than I was expecting, so I'm really pleased.'
Young reached a speed of just under 15 km/h - close to half of his maximum running pace of 30 km/h - during his session at Cockburn.
Last year's third-place Doig Medal finisher said he was firmly focused on remaining diligent in his rehab and not pushing the boundaries in a patient approach to getting back to full health in the wake of multiple hamstring setbacks this year.
'You do get to a certain speed where you're like, 'Oh, yeah, I can feel my hammy a little bit now',' he said.
'You sort of work within that zone where you want to push it a little bit, but you don't want to be feeling any pain or discomfort.'
Young will again watch from the sidelines as Fremantle eye a third straight win this week, with the high-flying Suns awaiting in a testing road assignment at People First Stadium.
Gold Coast are unbeaten in home fixtures this year, comprised of two matches at their Carrara base and two at their home-away-from-home at Darwin's TIO Stadium.
'They're hard to beat up there on the Gold Coast,' Young said.
'The conditions are sometimes tricky and they play well at home and it's a big travel trip for us.
'But two weeks ago, we went to GWS and won at a place where we'd never won before, so we can take a bit of confidence from that.
'We're up up for the challenge leading into the bye. You always want to have good win leading into the bye, so we're fired up and ready to go and hopefully we can come home with four points.'
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