Jonathon Ceglar suffered a foot fracture against the Magpies.

GEELONG has been dealt a disappointing blow with off-season recruit Jonathon Ceglar fracturing his foot two games into his return from knee surgery.

Ceglar suffered the break while competing for a mark in Geelong’s Round 2 VFL encounter with Collingwood.  

“Obviously it’s very disappointing for Jon as he’s been building up a large body of work and was close to being ready to go,” GM of Football Simon Lloyd says.

“He’s had the surgery Monday afternoon in Melbourne. He’s a professional, he’ll work through his rehabilitation program.

“Jon will play a strong role within our senior team at some stage during the season.”

Running man Sam Menegola’s AFL return also hit a speedbump when he also went down against Collingwood at the AIA Vitality Centre.

Menegola was seeing his first action of the year after undergoing off-season knee surgery.

“Sam has gone into the concussion protocols,” Lloyd says.

“It’s unfortunate because Sam has obviously been working for several months now on a huge training and conditioning phase.

“This is a small hiccup in his plans, but he should be available and playing before he knows it.”

Sam Menegola played his first game of the season against the Magpies.

Dual ruck/forward Esava Ratugolea will need to prove his fitness to take on the Lions on Friday night after twisting his ankle in the third term of Saturday night’s AFL clash.

“We all saw the vision of Esava with the ankle injury on the weekend,” Lloyd says.

“He’ll be a test this week and he’ll go very close to being available to play this weekend.”

In better news for the Cats, Gary Rohan and Sam Simpson are inching closer to returning to gameplay.

“Gary is training with the squad and he’s keen as mustard to start playing football,” Lloyd says.

“I think he voices that to me every second day which is great to hear and he’s very close to resuming in the coming weeks.

"Sam is now starting to be involved at training and do a lot more football and like Gary he’s not far away."

First year Cats Toby Conway (hip), James Willis (knee) and Flynn Kroeger are progressing with their programs as the club bullet-proofs the young trio before letting them loose via the VFL.