Banned St Kilda defender Jake Carlisle will face three months of rehabilitation, after undergoing hip surgery.
Coach Alan Richardson said Carlisle could have played through the injury and had post-season surgery under normal circumstances, however, as he is banned for the season, the club felt it was best to send him in for surgery now so he will be fit for the start of pre-season for 207.
“The surgery itself is minor but the recovery itself is pretty slow, because we’re talking about the hip, and he’s a big guy,” Richardson said.
“If we did it any later, that has the potential to have some sort of negative influence on his pre-season (for 2017).
“We’ll be really conservative with that, as you can imagine.
“In our full screening of Jake, we knew that he had a condition with his hip.
“The plan was that he play the year and then have the surgery."
