Melbourne defender Michael Hibberd will rest from their last AFL pre-season game against West Coast this Thursday because of Achilles tendon soreness.
The Demons hope he will be ready for their bumper round-one match later this month against St Kilda.
Hibberd missed last season because of his Essendon doping ban and then moved to the Demons.
Melbourne performance manager Dave Misson said they were being cautious with Hibberd.
"We're conscious that he's had 12 months out of the game," Misson said.
"He's only had one game since coming back and we want to make sure that he's cherry ripe before going back out there."
Misson said a teammate stepped on Hibberd's Achilles at training last Friday and it was still sore on Monday.
"We're just managing some Achilles soreness really ... we're getting a bit more information," he said.
"It's really going to be a management thing, so we're not going to play him this week and we'll look to build him up again for round one."
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