KEY NORTH Melbourne midfielder Ben Jacobs will be sidelined indefinitely with the club deciding this week to restrict him from training until his concussion symptoms have completely subsided.

Jacobs played a significant role in North's strong first half of the season, blanketing opposition stars such as Dustin Martin, Patrick Cripps, Tom Mitchell and Clayton Oliver.

But the run-with midfielder has played just one game since North's round 12 loss to Geelong, having been a late withdrawal from the Roos' selected team three times during that stretch.

ROO DEBUT Draftee to take on Eagles

North coach Brad Scott told reporters on Thursday the club had decided to rest Jacobs until further notice.

"We made a decision earlier in the week that he wouldn't play just purely because we've gone through this cycle of train and see how he pulls up and then he wasn't quite right and then we'd repeat that. We've repeated that four or five times," Scott said.

"There is an amount of evidence that suggests that light cardiovascular work can improve concussion symptoms, but that hasn't been the case with Ben.

"So we've taken the decision that we're just going to rest him completely until he has zero concussion symptoms before we do some light cardiovascular work.

"When that will be, hopefully it's not too far away. The risk is then that he needs to be reloaded again in terms of playing, but as far as I'm concerned until we get his head and neck right the rest doesn't matter.

"We'll just get that right first."

In better news for the Kangaroos, Scott was confident forward Mason Wood would be fit to return for Sunday's clash against West Coast at Blundstone Arena after missing the past three rounds with a hamstring injury.

MATCH PREVIEW Roos v Eagles

"He trained the main session last week and this time last week I suggested he would be a good chance to play," Scott said.

"It was a touch-and-go call post training, he pulled up pretty well. We just felt that [although] he'd improved really quickly the timeframe between his initial injury was just a little bit too quick last week.

"He trained last week, was close and should train really well again today and if he gets through today we'll definitely pick him."

Scott was unsure, however, when defender Alex Morgan would return from the calf injury he sustained in the second half of North's loss to Collingwood last Saturday.

"We don't think it's major but calf injuries have a habit of looking minor and then turning major," he said.

"We'll just rest him for a week and build him up through his running program and once he's running we can make a better assessment of when he'll be back."

Podcast: How on earth wasn't that free kick paid?

Find AFL Exchange on iTunes, Audioboom, Acast, Mixcloud or RSS.