TOM De Koning will miss the next two months of football after sustaining a knee injury in a VFL practice match last week.

De Koning, who was best-on-ground in the first half for the Northern Blues, sustained a lateral ligament injury in the loss to Richmond.

The second-year Blue will wear a brace for the next two weeks, with Director of High Performance Andrew Russell outlining the timeframe for his return.

“Tom had someone fall across his knee in the VFL practice game, which was unfortunate for him,” Russell said.

“It’ll probably see him miss eight weeks of football, possibly more. He had a really good pre-season and did a lot of work, which’ll hold him in good stead when he comes back.”

The news was more positive for a number of other Blues, who are either due to return to action this weekend or in coming weeks.

Russell said the form shown on the track by Caleb Marchbank could see the key defender ready to be back in action soon.

“Caleb has had an excellent training block — we’re very excited by what he’s producing,” he said.

“He’s getting very close to playing football.”

Another Blue who is preparing to play his first game for the season is ruckman Matthew Kreuzer, who continues to recover from knee surgery back in January.

Russell said the 29-year-old — whose knee has “taken a little while to settle” — was beginning to feature in training more consistently.

“He’s been able to do training sessions in a row before getting sore in the third session. He trained really well on the weekend, he did a really good footy session and he’s going to back it up again tomorrow,” he said.

“All going well, he’ls looking to be available this week — we’ll assess what level he plays at.”

Russell also provided updates on Darcy Lang, Jack Silvagni and Tom Williamson. For his full comments, watch the video above.