MANAGER of football operations Josh Mahoney says there is a concern over the long-term future of former skipper Jack Trengove, but he remains optimistic the midfielder can overcome another setback to his foot.

Speaking at AAMI Park on Tuesday afternoon, Mahoney said the fact Trengove – who was potentially moving to Richmond in a trade – had aggravated his navicular bone in his left foot was worrying for all concerned.

“It certainly would’ve gone through Jack’s head and it would’ve gone through everyone’s head,” he said.

“[A] navicular [injury] is a really tough injury to get on top of and you hear the negative stories about people that haven’t recovered, but you also hear the positive ones.

“We’ve got two players on our list – Jack Grimes and Colin Garland – who have recovered fully from [a] navicular [injury]. Some of them take a little bit longer and hopefully that’s the track that Jack’s going to go down.”

Trengove was meeting the surgeon on Tuesday to find out a timeline and “how bad it is”. But Mahoney acknowledged there was “a chance of more surgery” for Trengove, after things were looking up for the 23-year-old. 

“The last couple of months have been really positive since the last scan that Jack had eight weeks ago,” he said.

“They were all looking very good to the point where the surgeon was happy for him to start loading. We did that very progressively and he just had some soreness over his foot in the last couple of weeks, which we felt we got on top of.

“A scan yesterday (Monday), as part of the Richmond medical showed, unfortunately [there was] another crack in his navicular, which is devastating news for Jack. Now we do all we can to support him through it.”

Mahoney said Trengove’s injury “may have” dragged on a few more weeks, had it not been for the Richmond medical.

“He had an MRI scan a couple of weeks ago and this was a CT scan, which showed this further,” he said.

“He hadn’t been running for the last two weeks, based on the other scan, so it’s been a real shock to everyone, particularly the doctors.

“I went with Jack last night to the scanning and looked at it and it was a shock to all of the doctors to how it’s deteriorated in that period of time.

“We’ve just got to take a deep breath and get all of the information and work out the best plan for him.”

Mahoney said it was pretty tough for Trengove, when he immediately found out the news about his setback.

“He’s an amazingly positive guy. To go through your football career – everyone has setbacks, but he’s been dealt his fair share already in his short career.”

Mahoney said the possibility of trading Trengove to Richmond was “hypothetical”.

“We hadn’t agreed on anything with Richmond – they were very general conversations, so it still had to be ticked off by Jack and us,” he said.

“At this stage, the medical was the key thing and that blocked it.”

Mahoney said the Demons were set to keep picks No.2 and No.3 in the NAB AFL Draft – at this stage.

“We think they’re going to be two very good players. Clubs may come late for them, but at the moment, we want to keep those two picks,” he said.

“Already we’ve added Jeff Garlett and hopefully we’ll add [Collingwood’s] Heritier Lumumba in the next couple of days and also [GWS’] Sam Frost.

“Hopefully, we get those deals done and we go to the draft in a pretty strong position.”