Carlton coach David Teague has provided an injury update on star forward Charlie Curnow.
Curnow has had an interrupted pre-season after undergoing surgery to his troublesome right knee in November following a setback to the patella.
It is the same knee that the 24-year old had an operation on at the start of last year which held him out of the entire 2020 campaign.
Speaking to AFL.com, Teague said there is still no time frame on when Curnow will return to the field but that it was unlikely to be early in the season as the club takes a cautious approach.
"We don't have a time frame, I don't think it will be early in the season," Teague said.
"It's tracking well, our fans should be really excited by that. We have to patient, we're going to be patient, we're not going to force it, we're not going to rush it, regardless of results.
"We're going to make sure that we're doing what's in the best interest of Charlie first. We see him playing a lot of footy for our football club. If that takes a while to get that stage (then) we'll take a while."
Teague said that the club would act accordingly to how Curnow responds to his rehab but had full faith the medical staff.
"If he's going well then we're not going to hold it back for the sake of holding it back. I'm really comfortable our high performance and our medical staff have got a clear plan at the moment.
"We'll see how he goes, he'll have markers along the way. And if he's hitting those markers he'll progress and if he's not, we'll just have to be patient.
"What I can say is the way he's going about it, his attitude, and even just looking at his knee it's the best it's looked for a fair while. It gives us a lot of confidence that he's giving himself every chance to be that player that we all know he can be."
The athletic big man missed most of the 2019 season due to a knee injury before dislocating his knee while playing basketball with friends in October that year.
He fractured his knee cap in November of that year then suffered a suffered a hairline stress response in April which ultimately held him out of the 2020 season.
Curnow has kicked 77 goals from 58 AFL games since making his debut in 2016.