Dolly gives us his latest injury update:

Paul Thirlwell is back in full training with the lads now, and he's come through his first two sessions with no adverse effects. We hope to get him involved for maybe an hour or so in this week's Reserve game on Wednesday evening.

Shaun Vipond has had the settings on his knee brace changed up to 70 degrees flexion. That gives him a bit more functionality. We are working on some quad strength and also some light CV work, for the next ten days or so, before we change the settings again. It's all going well at the moment.

Jeff Smith is coming on slowly but surely. The swelling has almost gone completely from the ankle area. We've started some CV work, and we'll be starting some ankle strengthening exercises in the next week or so. He's still probably 3 weeks or so away from getting involved with full training with the lads. The chances are that he won't be back for this season, but you never know with these things. It may improve rapidly once we get some more functional work done.

Joe Garner is doing well, and the swelling has reduced at the rate we would have expected. He's still down at Blackburn more than he is with us and, as I mentioned, his partner is due this week. From what I've seen of him, he's in good spirits and looking forward to stepping up his rehab. 

Paul Reid is fine after playing half a game in the Reserves. He felt a bit tight after the game, but he's trained every day since and, hopefully, will play a bit more in the Reserves this week. It's just been a case of building up his fitness at the moment.

Chris Lumsdon is doing some CV work with me, in the gym, in between games at present. He is still having injections in his toe before the game, but he's getting through the games no problem. I'm quite happy with the way things are going.

Matthew Wood is ill at home, so I can't really update you on his ankle. Hopefully he'll be back in later this week and we'll try to get him back as soon as possible.

Matthew Brown is doing well. The swelling is going down and the feeling is coming back around his knee. We'll build up his CV work this week, as well as giving him a bit of treatment, and we hope to have him back some time next week.

That's all for now,

Keep well,

Dolly