West Coast Eagles forward Malakai Champion has avoided any long-term damage after going down with a knee injury at pre-season training last week.

Champion came from the track in discomfort, but scans have since revealed that he will only spend minimal time in recovery.

“Malakai has a low-grade MCL injury,” High Performance Manager Phil Merriman said.

“It should be a fairly quick turnaround for him and we expect to see him back in the program full-time post-Christmas.”

Second-year Eagle Jack Hutchinson is expected to miss an extended period of time with an ankle injury.

“Unfortunately, we found a stress fracture in Jack’s ankle,” Merriman said.

“It’s in an area that has a poor healing capacity, so we sent him in for a procedure.

“It’s going to be a little bit longer for him, we will probably have him running around the 10-week mark and then have him progress from there.”

Bailey Williams is progressing through a groin injury and is expected to re-join the main group after the Christmas break.

“Bailey has got a groin injury which he is working through,” Merriman said.

“We’ve had a good turnaround in the last week where he has become pain-free.

“The plan will be to get him running in the break and back into the rehab group post-Christmas, and then to returning to full training in late January.”

Exciting youngster Bo Allan is coming back from a minor wrist injury, while Harry Barnett continues to progress with his PCL rehabilitation.

“Bo has a little crack in his wrist,” Merriman said.

“It will be a quick recovery, but he can do all the running that we want him to do, and he can keep kicking, we just need to protect that wrist for about four weeks.

“Harry is progressing really well, he was actually able to complete a footy drill on Wednesday.

“We are going to give him a pretty specific program to follow over the Christmas break and will see him getting back into drills post-Christmas, and full training in late January.”

New draftee Sam Allen is still in the early stages of his ACL rehabilitation and will progress through to running in the new year.

 “Sam came to us six months post-op with an ACL injury,” Merriman said.

“We’ve just had to nurse him through this early part to make sure he’s got the right strength around his knee to progress him into change of direction and those kinds of things.

“He’s been straight-line running, and we will get him into aggressive change of direction when he gets back from the break.”