Orazio Fantasia remains a chance to return to Essendon’s line-up to face Gold Coast after being withdrawn from the side against Collingwood last weekend.

Fantasia was replaced by Jake Long last Sunday after sustaining a minor injury at training, but Physical Performance Manager Justin Crow says the damaging forward could still take his place in the team this Saturday.

“Orazio picked up a small adductor strain earlier in the week at training last week, so low grade that we believed there was a chance he might get up for the game last week,” Crow said on the SKINS Injury Update on Wednesday.

“He’s been progressing steadily since then (and) we’ll take him as a day-by-day prospect.

“We won’t be rushing him if he’s not ready, but we’ll be checking him later in the week to see if he’s ready to play this weekend.”

Bombers supporters will also be buoyed by the news that important midfielder David Zaharakis is tracking well in his recovery from a nasty collarbone injury as he races towards returning to the side.

“The player who is ahead of schedule is David Zaharakis who had surgery on his sternoclavicular joint,” Crow said.

“It’s not a common type of surgery, but it’s gone better than we even expected it to. We’re talking to the surgeon currently about fast-tracking his return to full contact.

“David was involved in half the session today and (is) really hoping to get involved in a lot more training over the coming weeks.

“We could potentially see him in the next couple of matches.”

Fellow on-baller David Myers suffered a kick to the shin in the club’s loss to the Magpies, but Crow confirmed he is on track to be available for selection, while Jayden Laverde is also likely to put his hand up after overcoming a hamstring injury.

Darcy Parish is one player that did return from injury last week, impressing with a strong performance in the VFL. Crow said he was happy with the return after a long lay-off following a significant thumb injury.

“He got a lot of touches of the football, he seemed to handle the ball well, we knew we’d get the running into him and he ran the game out well.”

Two Bombers who won’t be lining up this week are injured pair Jake Stringer and Patrick Ambrose, who both suffered disappointing setbacks against Collingwood.

“Jake had an incident in his calf, which turned out to be a soleus strain at the lowest end. There’s a little bit of blood in there, obviously (due to) playing out the match on it,” Crow said.

“For Jake, we’re looking at the Hawthorn match (in round 20) being his most likely and probably best-case return.”

Ambrose’s season appears over, with Crow confirming the defender is likely to spend approximately 10 weeks on the sidelines.

“Pat Ambrose in the game, as fans would have seen, was bent forward in that awkward position that can worry us when a player gets a nudge forward or a lunge forward and has a hamstring tear.

“On scanning, as we feared, there’s some tendon involvement. It’s intramuscular tendon, it’s very small-level involvement that doesn’t indicate surgery.

“However, it is a 10-week recovery period because of the high rates of recurrence in those.”