He was trumpeted as one of the club's major signings, but has rejoined VFL

The Hawks announced the near 2m-tall forward's signing early November from VFL club Essendon, but he's since joined fellow state level outfit Northern Bullants.

Rovers are still working with Jorgensen on whether he will name the O and M outfit as his 'home' club, allowing him to play when state commitments allow.

While it's naturally disappointing to lose any full-time player before the start of the season, the Hawks are confident there will be a straight swap with another VFL player Will Christie, who's a Rovers' junior and played six games last season, along with 10 at Geelong.

"He's not listed at Geelong, he's still training there, obviously that VFL system is very fluid, but we are very confident we'll see Will for a lot of the season, if not all season, which is really good because that helps us replace Toby (Murray)," Hawks' coach Sam Murray revealed.

Toby Murray, a younger brother of Sam, finished runner-up to his sibling in the best and fairest after playing a ruck-forward role and has now joined SANFL outfit Adelaide.

Rovers have largely used Alex Marklew, who had a superb 2023 to finish third in the best and fairest, and Tom Boyd as key forwards in the past two years, while Christie and recruit Tom McDonagh will alternate in the ruck.

"Having those two rucks, which we didn't have a lot of last year, Shane Gaston's had his best pre-season and has the ability to go in the ruck for five or six minutes, which will allow Will to go forward and when he went forward last year, he gave us a really good opportunity there," coach Murray explained.

"Judd Schubert's had an awesome pre-season, so we've got some options in how we want to attack that forward line."

Schubert became the 796^th player to play seniors at Rovers in the final round win over North Albury.

Rovers will round out their practice matches against Albury and Goulburn Valley outfit Mansfield.

Wangaratta defeated Mansfield by around five goals last Saturday.