Frontline Hawthorn players Brad Sewell and Simon Taylor had to go to hospital during a potentially-costly AFL practice match loss to North Melbourne.

Sewell's right arm was in a sling after the 40-point loss at Ballarat and he has a suspected collarbone fracture.

The key midfielder left the field during the first quarter of the 12.11 (83) to 6.7 (43) defeat.

Taylor hurt his ankle early in the second term and tried to limp from the field, but eventually needed a stretcher.

Coach Alastair Clarkson said post-match it was too early to comment on the severity of the injuries.

"You've got to play, every time anyone runs out onto the field it's a risk," Clarkson said.

"We've copped a couple today, we'll wait and see how it pans out."

While it was a tough day for the Hawks, top North midfielder Daniel Wells marked his comeback with three goals in an impressive first-half performance.

Wells was a late inclusion on Friday and this was his first game since round 11 last year, when a groin injury put him out of action.

North rested him for the second half, but he will have more game time next week in the lead-up to round one.

"It was pleasing and Daniel is on track - we were hoping he'd be ready to play today ... we got a half out of him," said Kangaroos assistant coach Brett Allison.

"He looked pretty comfortable, he's a classy player and it was good to see him fit back into things pretty easily.

"Hopefully he recovers well and we get a bit more out of him next week ... we will probably be looking towards three quarters (next) week and then he should be fairly comfortable for round one.

The North fans in the crowd of 5000 had plenty of Bronx cheers for their former defender Josh Gibson, who played against the Kangaroos for the first time since last year's controversial trade.

Gibson spent most of the match on Josh Smith, who kicked two goals.

The two teams rested several key players and the first half was scrappy in the wet conditions.

But North adjusted much better, restricting the Hawks to only two behinds in the first half to lead by 54 points early in the third term.

Then Hawthorn star Lance Franklin kicked their first goal at six minutes into the third term and another two minutes later.

Franklin finished with three for the quarter and the Hawks kept pace with the Kangaroos for the rest of the game.

"They adjusted to the conditions a bit better than us, it seemed, and we missed a couple of 'sodas'," Clarkson said.

"They missed some goals too, but when you're sitting on zero goals you need to nail a couple of shots from 30m out to at least give yourself some reward for some of your efforts - we couldn't do that.

"The second half, we were pretty competitive."

It has been a bad week injury-wise for Hawthorn - star recruit Shaun Burgoyne also hurt his hamstring at training and Clarkson said the former Port Adelaide onballer will be doubtful for round one.

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