Lisch missed Sunday’s 77-69 loss to Perth at Moss Vale with a calf strain while Penney twinged his hamstring during the clash with the Wildcats.

The Hawks fly out for the Blitz on Wednesday morning and, with the start of the NBL season just three weeks away, Beveridge said he won’t be risking either key man in the pursuit of preseason bragging rights.

‘‘Kevin won’t play and we’ll make a decision about Kirk later in the week but at the end of the day he’s 34 years of age and the season starts in three weeks time,” Beveridge said.

‘‘The last thing I want to do I risk him at all. It’s about getting the bodies right for the rest of the season.”

It will leave the Hawks down two men in their guard rotation and Beveridge plans on juggling his line up across their three games.

‘‘We’re going to play with different line ups and to be honest it’s zero expectation to win any games up there. 

“That’s probably a hard thing for our fan base to understand but nobody remembers who wins the title in the preseason. 

‘‘We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re just trying to get the guys to buy into our system of play and we’ll go from there.’’

Lisch has been a preseason standout so far but missing the Blitz will leave Penney with just two games under his belt ahead of the season tip-off.

Beveridge is not concerned about either of them being underdone coming into the season.

‘‘I have no concerns whatsoever. They’re pros and they’re doing all the right things,’’ he said.

‘‘I don’t have to push the Kirk Penney’s or the Kevin Lisch’s to train and do the extra things because they just know how to play the game and they’re the ultimate professionals.

‘‘They’re very minor injuries but we’ll put them in cotton wool this week and they’ll be ready to go when we get back from the Blitz.’’

With Lisch and Penney out of action, Kevin White will make a welcome return for the Blitz after missing the match with Perth with an ankle injury which had a major impact on the Hawks cohesion on offence.

‘‘I probably wasn’t overly happy but I’m not concerned by it because it’s still early,” Beveridge said.

‘‘Not having Lisch and not having Kevin White takes two guards out of your rotation so it put players out of position.

‘‘We had Tyson playing the point and we had Tim [Coenraad] playing different positions which really unsettled us from flow perspective.

‘‘[White] will pick up the work load this week and we’ll be more balanced.

‘‘He tweaked his ankle getting out of his car last week and missed three days of practice so he’s copped it from the boys a little bit.

‘‘He warmed up [against Perth] and went pretty hard but it’s only preseason and I knew he was going to play this week so I rested him.”