HARLEY Bennell will make a much-anticipated return to football with Peel Thunder this weekend.
Bennell sustained a grade one tear to his calf in February while training with Peel.
Coach Cam Shepherd said he was really excited for Bennell.
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READ NOW“His trials and tribulations have been well documented,” Shepherd said.
“He is a really good person and he deserves things to start going his way.”
Shepherd said he did not have huge expectations for him on the field against Claremont this Saturday.
“We will just be happy to have him out there,” he said.
Since his calf injury, Bennell has trained with Peel for eight weeks and with the Fremantle Dockers for a month.
“He’s had so many small issues with his calf,” Shepherd said.
“We’ve had to be cautious – it’s been a long drawn out process.
“We are so happy to get him back doing what he loves doing.”
Shepherd said he would probably have Bennell play in the forward line, with the occasional run on the ball.
Calf problems have limited Bennell to two games for the Dockers since he was traded from Gold Coast at the end of the 2015 season.
In January, Bennell was fined $15,000 with $5000 suspended after what the Dockers called “his involvement in a disturbance at a licensed premises in Fremantle on Sunday night”.
“Harley has not met our expected standards and also those of an elite AFL player,” Fremantle’s general manager of football operations Chris Bond said at the time.
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