AFL 2022: North Melbourne veteran Ben Cunnington will play Adelaide this weekend in his first AFL game for 13 months

North Melbourne star Ben Cunnington will make his fairytale AFL return this weekend after twice overcoming testicular cancer.

Hours after caretaker coach Leigh Adams declared the veteran midfielder would “want to be on that flight” to Adelaide to play the Crows, the club confirmed Cunnington would play his first AFL game in 13 months having recovered from two bouts of testicular cancer and more recently a calf strain and a bout of Covid.

The brilliant on-baller emerged unscathed, save for some stock-standard general soreness, from his first competitive hitout for the year on the weekend in the VFL and has now been deemed ready to play senior footy this weekend.

“Until it gets taken away form you and you have no control over it you soon realise that you still love it,” Cunnington told his teammates.

“I’ve been through what I’ve been through and without the support I have I couldn’t have got through it

“I’m here now, hungry, I feel I have worked hard to be in a position you help you boys out again.

“I’m keen as ever.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Adams had said Cunnington had “done so much for this footy club for such a long period of time” he deserved to be considered for an AFL return despite just one game back in the VFL.

“I‘m pretty sure he’ll want to be on that flight.” he said.

“With Ben, we’re not making any calls until he’s ticked every box.

“Obviously, the nature of how much footy he’s missed, his recent injury history as well.

Adams said that making sure Cunnington was fit to play in North’s final home game against Gold Coast next week in front of the Kangaroos faithful, by avoiding the potential for him breaking down against Adelaide, hasn’t been a consideration.

“He‘s such a proud person and he’ll still expect to go out there and get 30 touches because that’s just the champion he is,” Adams said.

“We’ve got to give him the best opportunity from a recovery point of view to go, ‘You know what, are you ready to go and can you contribute to a level that’s going to help us win games of footy’?”

Key defender Ben McKay is expected to return after being a late withdrawal against Sydney due to a shoulder complaint.

Jaidyn Stephenson raised eyebrows on more than one occasion against the Swans when he had his back towards Sydney players running into goal, and Adams said he’d spoken to the former Magpie about it.

“I‘m not disappointed one bit about the missed kick, we expect him to take risks with his ball use because he’s such a good user of the ball,” Adams said.

“What the expectation is once he makes that mistake is he moves on really quickly and gets back onto it.”

Adams said the lack of certainty about North’s coach next year, with reports the club is all in on Alastair Clarkson, would be an influence on out-of-contract forward Cam Zurhaar’s decision on his next contract, with Essendon reportedly having approached him.

“He‘d probably want to know who’s going to be the coach next year and it’s fair enough, Adams said.

“Everyone would like to know who their boss is when they’re going to work,”