AARON Hamill is a certainty to resume playing this season and still would have a clear function in the St Kilda team when he did, according to club co-captain Nick Riewoldt.

The chronically injured 29-year-old has not played since last September and is still listed by the Saints as being out indefinitely due to a knee complaint, but Riewoldt is anticipating his return soon after the mid-season break.

"I'm really confident he'll come back. Definitely. This year," Riewoldt said. "He'll start to take a few small steps in the next few weeks, I would have thought, and maybe (in) the last third of the year. If he could get that in, he just adds another dimension to the side. We all walk taller when he's out there."

On a five-year deal that does not expire until the end of 2008, Hamill has played 21 of a possible 47 matches over the past two seasons due to a range of leg injuries. St Kilda captain in 2003, Hamill played nine games last year.

The arthroscopy he had in February was the third procedure the battle-weary forward had had on his knee and triggered speculation that he might have played his last match. Hamill, who is still limited to stationary skills, has vowed that he would return.

"He's probably due a little bit of good luck," Riewoldt said. "If anyone can do it, he's going to be able to do it because he just gives himself every chance … just the guy he is and the professionalism he shows."

It was only a matter of time before Justin Koschitzke, a Saint who has managed to overcome his injury battles this year, returned to his best form, Riewoldt said.

"People have got to remember just what he's been through and the demons he's had to deal with mentally about his body.

"He's gone through an absolute disastrous run of injuries, so for him to start now to string a few games together — and I think he's played maybe 10 games in a row when you count last year — he's probably just starting to get a bit of that confidence back," Riewoldt said.

"He's only going to get better if he can string games together."

As a patched-up St Kilda prepares for today's pivotal game against Fremantle, Saints star Luke Ball has revealed the club's injury woes have got so bad that fitness staff have started copping abuse from frustrated fans.

Following the example of his former club Sydney, which won a qualifying final at Subiaco last year, Saints coach Ross Lyon marched the Saints into Perth early, bringing with him the 25 fit players at his disposal.

And while fierce criticism has been levelled at the Saints following their tedious loss to Hawthorn at the MCG last weekend, Ball said fans there were more vocal about the Saints' endless string of injuries. "The coaches tell us they are turning over every stone and really trying to do something about it because it is deflating, it is for the supporters," Ball told Southern Cross radio.

"As we were walking off the ground last week, that seemed to be more of the abuse we were copping — 'When are you going to get a full team out on the park?' The coaching staff walked off scot-free but the medical staff as they walked off the ground seemed to cop all the abuse.

"It is frustrating as a player, too, because while you do need to have depth and certainly our depth is being tested, you do feel a lot better with your better senior players playing.

"From the positive, we think we have found some players … but certainly towards the end of the season, you want your best players coming back and coming into form."

With Leigh Montagna, Xavier Clarke, Brendon Goddard, Jason Gram, Hamill and Matt Maguire amongst others all left in Melbourne, Lyon looks set to gamble on premature returns for Lenny Hayes and Matthew Clarke, and Fraser Gehrig and Riewoldt despite injury clouds.

And while Riewoldt said the loss of players to injuries had been partly due to bad luck, the team would have to play the cards it had been dealt on a huge night for both teams.

"The fact of where our season sits, it is a huge game … for us," Riewoldt said. "Sitting at 4-4, it would have been enormous if we could have pinched the game last week.

"But if we can turn at the break at level-pegging or just in front of the ledger, that will be pretty good, considering where we are at injury-wise."

Fremantle again will be without a key figure through suspension, with Josh Carr the seventh Docker to be suspended this year.

That disciplinary record, as well as a win-loss reading 3-5, has heaped speculation on Dockers coach Chris Connolly this week, murmurs he said he was ignoring.

"Ifs and but and whats and what ifs … we don't get caught up in that. It (speculation) has been going on ever since I have been here," Connolly said.

With AAP