North Melbourne captain Andrew Swallow remains unsure when he will return to the AFL from his achilles tendon rupture.
The star midfielder has recovered well from the round-18 injury last season and had been hopeful of being available for round one against Essendon.
But he accepts the Kangaroos will take no risks with him.
Swallow now predicts that if everything continues according to plan, North will look at bringing him back around their round-eight bye.
“It’s still wait and see,” he said.
“There are a whole heap of things – a lot of it will depend on where the club is at.
“If we’re sitting at 5-1, it probably makes the decision easier to wait a couple of weeks’ extra.
“The main thing over the next six or eight weeks is get some ks in the legs and get match fit.”
Swallow is running now and said the Achilles tendon feels good, but he has a sore foot.
“Although I said early on I want to be back in round one and I probably could be, I know they’re holding me back and they want to make sure everything is right to go,” he added.
There are big expectations surrounding North this season after a series of narrow losses last year meant they dropped out of the top eight.
Swallow said his No.1 goal this year is simple.
“I’d just like to play finals,” he said.
“We have been building for a while and we have been putting a lot of time and games into our young guys.
“We were shown up a couple of years ago when we played West Coast in a final.
“We understand that – we were still building the list.”
Last year’s run of close losses meant North had to work on the defensive part of their game.
“We have to tweak a few things, change a few things defensively, not leak as many goals,” he said.
“We love playing the brand of footy that we play, we love playing a nice attacking brand, but we have to be hard to score against as well.”