Dustin Fletcher is an outside chance of returning from injury in Round 22 but scans today confimed that David Hille and Courtenay Dempsey are out for the remainder of the season.
Club doctor, Bruce Reid, said that Fletcher has a right adductor strain and has been iced heavily for the past 48-hours.
“He had a similar injury at this same time last year and missed one week and then played in Hird’s farewell game so the best case scenario is that he could be back for Round 22 but it is probably unlikely,” Reid said.
“We will get him moving soon and, hopefully, he’s straight line running by the end of the week and we will look at increasing his work after that. But if he’s no good next week then that’s his season.”
Reid said Hille has a fractured bone in his left hand and will be operated on by Greg Hoy tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.
“He will have a couple of screws inserted into his hand and he will miss the season,” he said.
“We will put a couple of lightweight screws in which means he will be right in five weeks. The small screws will hold it still and he will be fine.”
Reid said Hille is not sure exactly when or how the injury actually occurred during the game.
And scans today confirmed that Courtenay Dempsey has a fracture of his left fibula which will take six-eight weeks to heal.
“He was running along and the fibula simply cracked. He thinks he might have gotten a knock earlier and then was running along a heard a crack – it’s very unusual for that to happen,” Reid said.
“It’s just a crack so it will heal on its own but he will be on crutches for the next week and then will wear the moon boot for four weeks or so.
""He needs to have no real impact for six weeks and we will do an x-ray then to see if it’s healing properly. There will be no hurry for him to recover but he will be running by pre-season.”
