Gold Coast’s forward group will be forced to push on without Charlie Dixon with the tall forward ruled out of Saturday’s game against Essendon at Etihad Stadium.
The 49-game spearhead succumbed to injury after aggravating a previous quad complaint, and will be iced for the remaining two games of the home and away season.
GC SUNS high performance manager, Stephen Schwerdt, updated goldcoastfc.com.au on the extent of Dixon’s injury.
“It was a bit unfortunate with Charlie, he obviously went into the game (with the injury)” he said.
“We weren’t sure if he would play last week, he came up pretty quickly and we took a calculated risk on playing him and it didn’t work out.
“Unfortunately he is going to miss a few weeks now.”
Meanwhile, Steven May will miss this weekend’s contest as he continues to overcome a hamstring strain, while Greg Broughton will need to pass a series of fitness tests following his late withdrawal from the SUNS’ match with Port Adelaide at Metricon Stadium.
Jack Martin competed manfully after copping a corked leg in the second term, and despite his best efforts, was unable to complete a four-quarter performance.
“It's unfortunate for Jack; he was going okay but then got a bad corkie and given there is not a lot of him, he couldn’t see out the game.
“He tried a few times to get back on the park and continue but towards the end it got to the stage where he couldn’t do anything else.
“But so far so good, he has pulled up pretty well, so pretty optimistic he’ll be okay this week.”
Danny Stanley sent an injury scare through the SUNS’ camp after going down with a shoulder complaint, but was cleared by medical staff on Saturday afternoon.
The seasoned midfielder has shown no sign of concern and appears a lock to retain his spot in the 22.
“He got a knock to it, and it looked pretty bad because he was in a fair bit of pain but it seemed to come good pretty quickly.
“After the game he pulled up well also. He’s done all the training this week and we think he’ll be fine given he got through it pretty well.”
