Five goals in a widely-praised performance won't be enough for Jarryd Roughead to walk straight back into Hawthorn's AFL side.
But Alastair Clarkson was delighted with his former skipper's efforts and if he's not in the line-up to take on Richmond at the MCG in round nine there's every chance he'll feature soon after.
Dropped for the first time since 2007, Roughead was the most dangerous forward on the ground as the Box Hill Hawks drew with Footscray in the curtain raiser for the Hawks' AFL upset over GWS at the MCG on Sunday.
Roughead embraced his elder statesman status to the point of giving young Bulldogs defender Reuben William a few pointers.
Clarkson offered no guarantees, but it appears speculation Roughead's decorated AFL career will end on 281 games is wide of the mark.
"It all depends on what's happening in the senior side and injuries (but) he's got every chance," Clarkson said of the 32-year-old.
"Five goals is a good effort ... it's perhaps a measure of the man to be able to go back and do that.
"We had a discussion on Wednesday around his omission from the side and we spoke about the importance of him carrying himself really strongly and he did that.
"That keeps him alive and in the hunt ... I dare say we're going to need him again.
"We want to use him again but it will all depend on how we're going, how our forwards are going, but everyone knows we need to search for the next generation of players for our footy club."
It's the same search that a teenage Roughead benefited from when he debuted in 2005 then saw regular AFL game time at the expense of stalwarts like Nick Holland, John Barker and Ben Dixon.
"These were guys who had been pillars for our footy club, ripper fellas and ripper players, but we needed to find the next generation of players," the coach said.
"Ironically then it was Roughead and (Lance) Franklin.
"They did bits and pieces in their first two years and then they emerged as really good players.
"Mitch Lewis is ready to play senior footy. He's going to have his ups and downs, but he just needs to have that space.
"Strangely enough for a young player, if Rough's there all the time with him, he's probably always going to sit back because of the icon he's been at our footy club.
"So we need to look at it all in its entirety."
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