A few big names will be missing from the Round 21 team sheet for the Suns, giving Match Committee plenty to consider as they prepare to face Queensland rivals the Brisbane Lions.
As confirmed by goldcoastfc.com.au on Tuesday, captain Tom Lynch has been ruled out for the remainder of the 2017 season with a PCL injury.
General Manager Football Operations Marcus Ashcroft has also confirmed to the Optomo Injury Report ruckman Jarrod Witts was in a similar situation.
“Wittsy’s been fantastic for our team this year, he’s carried the ruck load and had a really great year,” Ashcroft said.
“Unfortunately he’s had a few episodes on his shoulder, his non-rucking shoulder.
“Saw a surgeon yesterday and the view is he needs to get surgery ASAP, so he won’t play again for the last three games.
After a frustrating two months, Gary Ablett’s ongoing hamstring issues continue to trouble the champion midfielder.
“Really frustrating for Gary… frustrating for us and also the fans- we would have loved to see Gaz play more games that he has over the last two months,” Ashcroft said.
“He has had these ongoing hamstring issues which we’ve monitored on a daily basis.
“We’ve continued to get scans each week just to see if there is any further damage.
“At this point we’re no clearer as to whether he’ll play on the weekend, we’re giving him every chance that we can during this week to recover.
“We’ll give him to Thursday to train and we’ll assess him after that day.”
Following on from Round 20, David Swallow (groin) and Aaron Hall (hamstring) are both listed as a test ahead of QClash 14.
“Remarkably, Hall’s pulled up really well- he presented at the club on Monday feeling a lot better, trained and ran yesterday, which was encouraging,” Ashcroft said.
“He’ll train on Thursday, we’re optimistic he might be available but we’ll wait until then to determine that.”
After recovering strongly from his ankle injury Jarryd Lyons is on track to play against Brisbane come Saturday afternoon, while Michael Rischitelli and Brandon Matera are also likely to return.
“We’ll test him [Lyons] against Thursday, if he gets through that and does everything required then we should see him lining up on Saturday afternoon,” Ashcroft said,
The list of ‘ins’ could also include small forwards Ben Ainsworth and Brandon Matera should they satisfy medical staff at main training on Thursday.
Jack Leslie (ankle) and Brayden Fiorini (hamstring) are also listed as tests, but expected to be available for the weekend.
Click here to see the full injury list.
