Carlton coach David Teague confirms skipper Sam Docherty is ready for a big pre-season, following two seasons ruined by ACL tears.

The defender hasn’t played since August 26th, 2017 and re-injured his knee in last year’s pre-season.

Teague says their challenge will be making sure they don’t overwork the 26-year-old.

“He looks good, he spends a fair bit of time in front of the mirror, he’s as professional as they come with the way he goes about it,” Teague told SEN Breakfast.

“He’s slightly adjusted his program and he’s overseas at the moment doing some training in the States so I look forward to him getting back.

“The challenge for him is physically he’s ready to go, he’ll want to join in everything, but it’s just being smart what he joins into.

“He needs to do enough to be ready to go for the season, but not too much to put him at risk. That will be the balancing act which I’ll back our high performance team to do their best.”

Docherty says he has come back to training lighter than he did last year in order to take unneeded stress off his knee.

He is yet to play a game since being appointed as co-captain of the club.