The striker, who has scored three goals in four appearances since returning to Cappielow, received an epidural injection on 16 February in order to alleviate the agony caused by swelling in two enlarged discs in his back.

He was instructed to have complete rest for the first five days after the procedure in order to recuperate, with the aim of resuming physical activity within approximately 10 days.

MacDonald returned to full training yesterday and Ton boss Duffy says the 34-year-old could well feature against the Blue Toon at Balmoor due to the effectiveness of the treatment.

He told the Tele: “The procedure went well and the most important thing for the boy himself is that he is now pain free.

“Psychologically, he’s in a better place. He wasn’t himself before.

“He’s not waking up in the morning in abject misery with the high level of pain, so from that point of view his personality or persona is back to normal and he’s looking forward with optimism.

“The first five days [after the injection] involved complete rest, then he was in the gym for a couple of days and took part in training yesterday and will do so again today.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed that everything keeps going well and he can come in and play an integral part in our run-in to the end of the season.

“We’ll assess him with tomorrow in mind.

“Obviously travelling three and a half to four hours on a bus up to Peterhead might mean a stiff back — I don’t know, so we’ll see.

“But I think the back is alright so I don’t envisage any great issues with that. Once you get off the bus and do your warm-up, you’re raring to go.

“At the end of the day he’s available again and that’s something we’ve certainly been looking forward to: having him back and hopefully doing what he does best, which is scoring goals.

“He feels better and ready to go and play. The only thing is his legs; the back I’m sure will be fine, it’s more just the fact he’s not played for around three weeks.

“He’s not been kicking, turning and twisting and doing all the game-related stuff, and you don’t want him to end up with a groin strain or a hamstring strain or something like that.

“So he’ll be training at a slightly reduced intensity than the rest of the players, but that’s fine because it’s about getting him back involved on the ball, passing, moving, turning and so on. We’ve got to be a wee bit careful that we don’t do too much, too quickly. But he’s got a chance of being involved tomorrow.

“If there’s no reaction today, then, of course, he’ll have every chance of being involved up at Peterhead.” Although MacDonald may be available for selection, it doesn’t necessarily read that he will walk straight back into the starting line-up.

Duffy added: “As I’ve said before, it’s about getting the balance right and each game has its difficulties and different styles.

“Sometimes you might want to play with two strikers, sometimes you might want to play with three, sometimes you might want to play with one, with one off or maybe two wide players.

“With Peaso, Ross [Caldwell] and Declan [McManus] coming back, we have options of playing in slightly different ways. And that’s what this does: it gives us the opportunity to think about options.

“And we also have three games in seven days — Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday — to consider, so you understand you will need all of your players. You can’t just rely on 11 individuals.” Ton travel to the north east looking for a win to keep the pressure on league leaders Stranraer after narrowing the gap to a point with their win in last weekend’s head-to-head meeting.

Although tomorrow’s opponents currently find themselves 10 points off the pace in sixth spot, Duffy still sees the Blue Toon — and Dunfermline — as title contenders.

He added: “Peterhead are a good side.

“They’ll have Rory McAllister back available again — they won 2-0 without him, which tells you how strong they are.

“And they just went and signed Gary McDonald after he left St Johnstone, and he scored for them last week.

“So they’ve got good players and will have aspirations of challenging for at least the play-offs, if not the title.

“They have games in hand, so I think it’s too early and too tight a league to look at it now and decide. These are teams that will challenge and these are the teams that won’t.

“I don’t think you can write anybody off at this stage. Every team in this league has every incentive to pick up points.

“Every game is ultra-competitive, and Peterhead will be a very, very difficult game for us again. They don’t lose many goals and they’re no pushovers, that’s for sure.

“But we’ve been away to Brechin, Ayr and Forfar recently [and picked up points]. Like Peterhead, they’re notoriously difficult places to go and get a result.

“With the options we’ve got up front I think we’ll have opportunities to score goals. What we’ve got to do is stay determined and resilient and make it difficult for the opposition.

“That was something we did well against Stranraer on Saturday, and if we retain and use that knowledge of how to grind out a result if you’re not playing great, it stands you in good stead.

“So we know what’s required, and on our day, if we perform to our maximum, I’m confident we can get three points against anybody.”