Essendon star Joe Daniher has had an injury setback in his bid to return to footy.

The forward suffered a calf strain while training which is expected to sideline him for 10 to 14 days.

Essendon head of medical services David Rundle provided the update via the club website.

“During our rehabilitation skills session on the weekend, unfortunately Joe felt some soreness in the calf, and we had that imaged (scanned) yesterday which confirmed a minor calf strain so that will mean he is off running for about 10 to 14 days,” Rundle said.

Daniher has not played at AFL level since Round 9 last year.

In other injury news at Essendon, defender Conor McKenna (fractured hand) remains a chance to face the Western Bulldogs this weekend.

“As we know, Conor fractured his hand during our game against North Melbourne. He is a pretty tough character and managed to play out the game, so he’ll have surgery today where they’ll insert a plate to reduce that fracture,” Rundle said.

“Obviously, this week is a tight turnaround ahead of our game on Friday night so we’ll see how he responds to the operation and we’ll assess his functional ability later in the week before we decide whether he can play or not.”