Essendon midfielder Darcy Parish is on the cusp of the selection mix after making strong progress in his recovery from a major thumb and wrist injury.

Bombers Physical Performance Manager Justin Crow said Parish will have a chance to prove himself ready at training on Thursday.

“Darcy started to handle the ball towards the end of last week, he did more of that over the weekend and again today,” Crow said on the SKINS Injury Update on Tuesday.

“He’ll be available for full training this week on Thursday. We’ll be watching him closely because his surgeon is happy with the heal of his injury.

“From a medical point of view, his thumb and wrist are okay to go, but we really want to see him able to handle the ball properly and that will be the main determining factor in terms of whether or not he ends up playing this weekend.”

Fellow on-baller David Zaharakis has also built up his load this week as he recovers from a nasty collarbone injury.

“David Zaharakis is back doing quality running now, he’s building up his volumes - he did eight kilometres today,” Crow said.

“He’s going to be running ready pretty soon and we’ll start building his strength as we’re able. And then we’re looking to the surgeon to clear his structural issue in terms of his availability later this year.”

Crow said Jayden Laverde is tracking well in his rehabilitation from a minor hamstring strain and is nearing his return to the field.

“Jayden had his minor hamstring injury, he was running today. He’ll be doing the warm-up later this week (and) doing some good training on the weekend.

“If he can tick off his top speed next week and train well then we’ll potentially be making him available next weekend.”

He also said he expected all of last week’s victorious Bombers to be available again to face Collingwood on Sunday.

“We got through both the VFL and AFL games pretty well. We’ve taken a few knocks that we’ll be watching through the week, but nothing major at this stage that we think will definitely rule anyone out.”

With only key forward Joe Daniher and Laverde out of the side with non-impact injuries, Crow said he is satisfied with the availability of the squad heading into the back end of the season.

“Apart from those two we’ve really just taken a number of contact injuries to some key players,” he said.

“Generally, I think our availability is good. We’ll keep working hard to get those players who are out back and on the park for the end of the season.”