Ben Brown will play in a VFL practice match next week as he makes a case for a spot in North’s Round 1 side.

The 24-year-old fell just short of making the squad for the clash against the Giants, following an interrupted pre-season.

According to coach Brad Scott, Brown could make his first competitive appearance for Werribee next Saturday.

“He (Brown) probably could play this week, but we’ve chosen to give him another week,” Scott told the media on Thursday.

“He’s trained really well and strongly yesterday.

“We think he’ll be available for Round 1, but we’ve just got to make a choice based on the other guys available.”

Scott is confident Brown will have no issues in getting through his return hit-out.

“We’ve been pretty conservative with getting him back out into games because we prefer to prioritise training and he’s done a fair bit of that.

“Once he gets through the game next week we’ll just pick it on form.”

Two more Roos coming off an interrupted pre-season will play on Friday against the Giants, with Lachlan Hansen and Sam Wright returning to action.

It’ll mean a reshuffle of the side at Manuka Oval.

“That’ll mean players like Sam Durdin, who has played really well so far, and really put his name up, he’ll have a rest this week,” Scott explained.

“We’re still trying to use it as an opportunity to get as big a pool of players to pick from for Round 1.

“We’ll still do some things that are giving players opportunities (and) leave a couple out just to get a couple others in.”

One player who will be missing in Round 1 is Ben Cunnington, serving his suspension for rough conduct on Hawthorn’s Taylor Duryea.

With the risk of Cunnington missing a second week if the club challenged the Match Review Panel’s ruling, Scott said the club decided to accept the one week suspension.

“We would have loved to (have) pleaded our case,” Scott said.

“The system as it stands at the moment, we don’t get an opportunity to do that because it’s a massive risk to risk two weeks.

“At the moment, those line-ball calls, they generally go against you so it’s too big a risk to challenge it.

“Our legal advice – and trust me, we sought a lot of legal advice to see if we had a decent case – (said) the rules are written in such a fashion that it makes it very difficult to challenge.”