A late withdrawal from last round's win over Geelong, the 31-year-old was Hawthorn's sole change for Saturday's clash with Brisbane, replacing injured running defender Jarman Impey.

The match will be Birchall's 40^th at UTAS Stadium and his second at the ground in three weeks, but just his second AFL match in more than two years.

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Asked if Birchall was a "week-by-week proposition", Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson pointed out that his four-time premiership defender had come through a string of VFL games before missing last week.

"He's played four of the last five," Clarkson said.

"He didn't quite recover quite as well as we'd like from the game he played against Fremantle two weeks ago so we didn't want to take a risk with him.

"There's some players who will play a little bit sore from week to week and Birch has been one of those for probably 12 or 13 years of his career - he's not one of those now.

"When he hadn't recovered properly from the Fremantle game it was an easy decision for us to say we're not going to take the risk."

Clarkson admitted fixturing could see Birchall miss another game next week.

"We'd be hopeful he'll pull up well from this game, but we've got a six-day break after this game too so depending on how he recovers from this game will determine whether or not he plays the Kangaroos," he said.

"By the end of the season he'll be much more confident that he can play week to week than what he was six or eight weeks ago."

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