Carlton coach David Teague reaffirmed Curnow would not be sighted early in the season but was confident he was making progress in his recovery.
“I don’t have a time-frame,” he told the club’s website. “I don’t think it will be early in the season[but] he is tracking well.
“We have to be patient and we are being patient. We are not going to rush it regardless of results[on the field].
“We will see him play a lot of footy for our football club,if that takes a while to get to that stage then it takes a while.
“But the way he is going about it,his attitude,and just looking at his knee it is the best it has looked.”
Curnow has been managing multiple setbacks from an original dislocated knee cap then a fracture of the knee cap and cartilage problems under the knee. He had difficulty training on hard surfaces.
His latest setback happened when he injured the knee when having a light kick with his brother. He had surgery and has been painstakingly recovering since then,with a fracture specialist reportedly consulted to oversee his recovery.