Injury blow for Bombers ahead of Crows clash
Essendon forward Orazio Fantasia’s AFL season is all but over, the club announcing he will miss up to six weeks with a hamstring injury.
Orazio Fantasia sits in the bunker after injuring his hamstring on the weekend. Photo: Tracey Nearmy / AAP
It’s a bitter blow for a club on the cusp of finals contention already pondering a tough match-up against an ominous Adelaide without star midfielder Zach Merrett, who will serve a one-match ban for striking Carlton’s Lachie Plowman.
In better news for the Dons, James Kelly and Andy McGrath were rested last week but will return to face the ladder-leading Crows.
Fantasia suffered the hamstring injury in the first quarter of Saturday’s win over Carlton and will need his side to make a deep finals run to feature again at AFL level this year.
“Obviously at the time it looked like quite a serious hamstring (injury),” performance manager Justin Crow said.
“And what the scans show us is that it’s a grade two-plus, which means he’s going to miss five to six weeks.
“Obviously we’ll need everything to go right and we’ll start to progress him up as he’s able over the coming week.”
The news is better for full-forward Joe Daniher who is set to face Adelaide at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night despite a scary incident against the Blues.
“His knee hyper-extended and sometimes when that happens you can get some really bad injuries,” Crow said.
“But fortunately for Joe and us he got away with it.
“He’s a little bit sore in his knee but he was able to play out the game. He’s looking pretty good this week and he’ll train (today).”
Daniher, who leads the race for this season’s Coleman Medal, could prove a matchup headache for Adelaide as it ponders the availability of key defender Daniel Talia.
Daniher is fit to play against Adelaide. Photo: Michael Errey / InDaily
Talia will be assessed after reporting groin tightness in the opening term of Sunday’s Showdown, but he was able to play out most of the match against Port Adelaide.
“For precautionary reasons and the state of the game, we were able to rest him with about 10 minutes to go,” Crows General Manager of High Performance Matt Hass told the club’s website.
“He’s pulled up pretty well this week. He’ll be a test for this weekend.”
Paceman David Mackay copped a corked thigh in the opening minutes and was swiftly put in cotton wool, with Hass describing the knock as “reasonably significant”.
“We did what we could,” he said.
“The physios and doctors put a fair bit of work into him. But after making one attempt back out on the ground, unfortunately we had to stop his day there.”
Mackay will face a fitness test ahead of the Essendon game.
-AAP
