Tim Kelly: West Coast Eagles midfielder not guaranteed an instant recall, according to coach Andrew McQualter
Kelly had 27 disposals and kicked two goals in an impressive outing for the Eagles' WAFL side against West Perth on Saturday night.
The 30-year-old has been pushed to half-forward this season to make way for a young midfield and it has been revealed he asked to play in the reserves after he was offered a role as the Eagles' substitute in Sunday night's defeat to Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.
The Eagles are already without a host of their midfield veterans, with Elliot Yeo a chance to miss the rest of the season and Dom Sheed now retired.
They will now be without Jack Graham for three more matches after he was slapped with a ban for using a homophobic slur against a Greater Western Sydney player in their round 17 defeat, while Liam Ryan missed the clash with the Power due to soreness.
'We have played Tim clearly out of the midfield for about six or eight weeks now. Understand he has played the majority of his footy as a mid, so we just had a conversation around his form and then he and I were really honest, we worked through it,' Eagles coach Andrew McQualter said.
'I watched the game on the iPad last night and I thought he competed really well. It was a bit of a muddy game, but Tim had some really influential moments through the midfield, so that was good for him.
'He's absolutely eager to continue to contribute to our team and he is really driven. He will play whatever role the team gives him, but he went back and played mid and we will work our way through it. we will assess it, we will work through Tim's game on tape and pick the best team we can.
Asked if experience would be a factor at the selection table, McQualter said: 'Potentially, it might be. We will work our way through that'.
The Eagles ran a midfield troupe of Harley Reid, Clay Hall, Elijah Hewett and Brady Hough for most of the 26-point loss to the Power, with Liam Baker stationed at half-forward to quell the impact of Connor Rozee.
McQualter said there were few other experienced options, with first-year whippet Tom Gross their emergency.
'We don't have a heap of experienced mids available,' McQualter said.
'Tim is obviously one that has played a lot of midfield throughout his years, but there is not a lot on our list unfortunately.'
McQualter is confident they will regain Ryan for next Saturday night's home clash with Richmond.
'Liam was just a little bit sore. He fully trained main training (on Thursday), woke up a little bit sore, we're confident he will be OK next week, he just wasn't able to play today,' he said.
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