GREATER Western Sydney captain Toby Greene has been given the green light to play for Victoria in Saturday night’s AAMI AFL Origin clash against Western Australia in Perth.
The 32-year-old has dealt with a hip/glute issue across the pre-season and needed to tick some boxes at the Giants across January and February.
But after training fully across the past fortnight and playing half of last Friday’s match simulation in western Sydney, Greene has been ticked off in time.
With 25 players in the squad, including Ben King who has replaced Jeremy Cameron, playing minutes are expected to be managed, especially for veterans like Greene.
Greene will travel to Perth on Wednesday with teammate Lachie Ash and the Victorians.
Key defender Sam Taylor and veteran midfielder Stephen Coniglio will be in the opposition, alongside star spearhead Jesse Hogan, who has also recovered from an injury-interrupted pre-season to be fit in time for the first Origin fixture since 1999.
Hogan had surgery on his troublesome right foot last September after carrying the injury across the second half of 2025.
The 2024 Coleman Medal winner was on a modified program before Christmas, but has trained with main group for the majority of 2026 to date.
High profile recruit Clayton Oliver returned from a calf strain earlier this month and played 15 minutes of match simulation last Friday.
The 28-year-old, who won four best and fairests at Melbourne before moving to GWS last October, has done most of the program since moving to the Giants and is set for more match sim minutes on Friday.
Adam Kingsley will bring a squad of 26 players to Melbourne next Thursday for a practice match against Collingwood at La Trobe University the following day.
GWS will then play Sydney in the AAMI Community Series on February 26 with a VFL game also planned to allow the full list to play.
The Giants open 2026 by hosting Hawthorn at Engie Stadium in Opening Round, where everyone except for Darcy Jones (ACL) and Josh Kelly (hip) are expected to be available at this stage.
