Essendon has some minor injury concerns ahead of the King’s Birthday Eve clash against Carlton
GOLD Coast could have co-captain Jarrod Witts back to face St Kilda next weekend, while Essendon coach Brad Scott has an issue to follow up with the AFL’s umpiring department as well as some fresh injury concerns from Sunday’s action.
The Suns moved into the top eight on Sunday night with a rousing 11-point victory over Essendon, but have quickly turned their attention to next Saturday night against the Saints.
Witts missed the win over the Bombers due to a hamstring strain, but coach Damien Hardwick said his towering ruckman is a chance to play the Saints.
“We think it might be a one-weeker at this stage,” Hardwick said.
“It only happened late this week. He had scans … and we’ll get that out in due course.”
For the Bombers, Kyle Langford was subbed off during the fourth quarter due to what Scott described as a hip pointer injury that “doesn’t sound too serious”.
Todd Goldstein was a late withdrawal due to an ankle injury, which Scott said just wasn’t quite right to go.
And in the VFL, former top 10 draft pick Zach Reid has suffered what the club believes is a pectoral injury.
“I’ve been made aware it might be a pectoral injury but I haven’t spoken to any of our medical staff,” Scott said.
“Reidy has looked fantastic at training and the VFL and can’t take a trick. He’s just incredibly unlucky.
“He’s a great person, we think he’s a player of enormous potential, and we’ll persist with him as long as it takes.”
Scott was at pains to say the umpires had no influence over his team’s loss, but wanted to clarify the interpretation of the deliberate out of bounds rule following a final quarter incident where Nick Hind was pinged after soccering the ball forward and over the boundary line.
“I think if you kick the ball off the ground, the umpires tend to pay deliberate out of bounds. So we’ve just got to clarify that so I can let our players know,” Scott said.
“They looked a bit bewildered with a couple of those deliberates.”
Despite his delight at responding to a down performance against Carlton last week with a seventh win from seven games at home this year, Hardwick said his team now has to learn to win on the road.
“We’ve got a challenge next week and that’s as far as we’re looking,” he said, with his team winless from five starts on the road so far this season.
“It’s a nice boring old answer from a coach, but we haven’t won an away game yet.
“We have to sit there and understand what that looks like and what that feels like.
“We’re very good at home and have a great understanding of how to play here, but we need to start leaving our mark on the away games. That’s our challenge.
“Our thoughts are no further than next week against St Kilda.”
Leave a Reply