RISING Greater Western Sydney forward Aaron Cadman is managing a "tricky" pelvis issue and won't be pushed to return ahead of time, despite the club's star-studded injury list.

Cadman didn't play in the official practice match against Sydney, and then trained a few days later, whereupon the injury flared again. On Tuesday, he was listed as being out for two weeks with a pelvic problem.

The Giants' injury list is littered with first-choice players, including Toby Bedford (hamstring), Leek Aleer (groin), Brent Daniels (hamstring), Sam Taylor (hamstring), Darcy Jones (knee), Josh Kelly (hip) and Tom Green (ACL).

"It is a tricky injury, it's lower back. One that we think we've settled, but we're never quite sure. It can settle faster than what you can expect, too," GWS coach Adam Kingsley said in a press conference on Friday.

"We'll be pretty gentle with him, we're not going to push him at this part of the season, to get back before he needs to.

"It's probably one that got sprung at us over the last week, we weren't expecting it. He has done a full pre-season and has been quite good in it, so it's a bit of a surprise one. But we take them as they come, and hopefully they don't come too often."

"I know there's a lot that's been made of our injuries, but largely our backs are intact and our midfield's intact. I have real confidence in the depth of our front-end."

The Giants will regain powerful midfielder Finn Callaghan for Saturday's match against Hawthorn, after the 22-year-old didn't feature in the match simulation against Collingwood and the Swans practice match due to a hip flexor injury.

"He's built his training loads over the last three weeks and has got to the position where he's had two really strong weeks of training," Kingsley said.

"We're picking him with confidence, we're not rushing him. He's obviously a really important player for us, strengthens our on-ball group, and he's good to go."

GWS and Hawthorn last locked horns in an elimination final in September, where the Hawks won by 19 in a see-sawing affair.

"There's nothing we can do about that (result) right now. Winning the opening round against the same opposition doesn't neutralise what happened last year. That's a bit of a myth to suggest otherwise. But it helps us this year, and that's what we're firm on, that's our mindset," Kingsley said.

"Defensively, they're quite strong, and they managed to take away our back-half goals against them last year, which had been a real strength of ours over the course of the season. I'd imagine defensively, they'll remain quite similar. 

"(Jai) Newcombe through the midfield is clearly a player who is high-quality, a great contested player, clearance winner, captain now, so is clearly really important to the way they want to play, and he releases a lot of guys around him. Then ahead of the ball, they're really dangerous. We're going to have to do a great job defensively to manage those guys."