\n Eric Hipwood is hopeful of returning from a knee injury in the second half of the season\n <\/p>\n
Eric Hipwood waves to the crowd during a Brisbane captain’s run at Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 26, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
ERIC Hipwood says recovery from a second knee surgery is “slow”, with the Brisbane forward hopeful of playing in the second half of 2026.<\/p>\n
Hipwood suffered a partial tear of his right ACL late in the home and away season before undergoing surgery in September.<\/p>\n
It followed a ruptured ACL in his left knee in 2021 that cost him 10 months on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
“It’s going slow,” Hipwood said on Wednesday morning at the Lions’ pre-season camp on the Sunshine Coast.<\/p>\n
“It’s tedious, but that’s part of a long-term injury.”<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old missed Brisbane’s finals campaign, and ultimately a second premiership, paving the way for teenager Ty Gallop to live the fairytale in just his sixth career game.<\/p>\n
Charlie Cameron and Ty Gallop celebrate a goal during the 2025 Grand Final between Geelong and Brisbane at the MCG: Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
With former West Coast skipper Oscar Allen joining during the off-season, Gallop again looks set to be part of a three-tall forward line alongside Logan Morris while Hipwood recovers.<\/p>\n
The Brisbane Academy product said he was hopeful of returning “mid to late season”, but understood setbacks were part of the recovery process and nothing was set in stone.<\/p>\n
“I’m almost halfway through the rehab, which is nice,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been able to work really hard in the gym and get a lot stronger, which is good.”<\/p>\n
The other injury concern for the two-time premiers is full-back Jack Payne, also on the way back from knee surgery, although he is expected to be available very close to the season start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Hipwood is hopeful of returning from a knee injury in the second half of the season Eric…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-450609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}