Melbourne's Jack Watts to miss against Carlton on Sunday with a hamstring injury Melbourne's Jack Watts has tweaked his hamstring. Melbourne forward Mitch Clark is expected to return from surgery sooner rather than later. MELBOURNE is confident key forward Mitch Clark will spend no more than eight weeks on the sidelines after successful foot surgery on Wednesday. But its forward line has been dealt another blow with Jack Watts missing Sunday's clash with Carlton because of a hamstring strain. Watts spent time in the forward line against the Brisbane Lions last Sunday and kicked two goals. He would have been expected to play there again in the absence of Clark and Chris Dawes. Demons coach Mark Neeld said he was not tempted to rush Dawes into the line-up, given his limited VFL game time since injuring his hamstring. "Just because one of our key forwards gets injured it doesn't necessarily mean instantly that the other is a week ahead of his rehab," Neeld said. Dawesy played around about 70 minutes in the VFL last week. He's trained, but he just hasn't done enough work. We have to be sensible in that. The plan is for Chris to play a full game for Casey this weekend against Port Melbourne and if he gets through that then that will be an indication that he's ready to play at the higher level. Neeld said Clark's prognosis was positive. "We're really pleased with the feedback we got from the surgeon last night," he said. The bolt or the screw came straight out, it's only a small wound, so we're hoping to get him back inside the eight weeks if everything goes well, so that'd be really good. Neeld brushed aside criticism from club great David Schwarz this week by saying "it doesn't hurt me." Schwarz, speaking on Fox Footy, questioned whether the Demons were "playing for the coach" and said he would be surprised if Neeld was still coaching Melbourne next year. "I heard he'd be surprised if I was coach," Neeld said. Well gee, I hope he's surprised, I'd rather him be surprised than me.