North Melbourne's injury woes are mounting with ruckman Callum Coleman-Jones suffering a calf injury in the Kangaroos' loss to Sydney at the SCG on Saturday.
Coleman-Jones, who was playing in his first AFL game since rupturing his Achilles in Round 3 last year, lasted just 26 minutes before being medically substituted out of the game.
Senior coach Alastair Clarkson shared insight on the status of back-up ruckman post-game.
"I'm not sure [how the injury occurred], we were told he was out of the game with a calf strain, so we'll get that assessed during the week," Clarkson said.
"He's come back from a nasty Achilles injury and they are always slow and difficult process to rehabilitate those types of injuries. To his credit, he worked really hard in getting himself back in the senior side and then hurts a calf, which I think is on the other side [to the Achilles injury], bizarrely enough.
"We'll wait and see and get that scanned, I don't know the severity of it. He was deemed unfit to be able to continue in the game, so you'd think he'd be unlikely to play [next week]."
North Melbourne's shortage of Tristan Xerri replacements will continue to haunt them as he serves out his suspension for the next two weeks, his absence compounding the impact of Coleman-Jones' early injury in the Kangaroos' 31-point loss.
Sydney ultimately won the hitouts battle 80-10, a historical differential of +70, as key talls Brynn Teakle and Jack Darling were forced to play out of position to challenge superstar ruck Brodie Grundy. Grundy, who Clarkson called "the form ruckman of the competition", recorded a career-high 39 first-half hitouts, finishing with 62 for the game.
"Teakle's come in to do the second rucking for us today behind Coleman-Jones and he hasn't even been rucking at reserve grade level, so he was cramping before three-quarter time," Clarkson said.
"That just makes it tough. I thought Teakle battled really manfully over the course of the game, and he had support from Darling. But it just overwhelms you in the end.
"Some of it is fatigue and some of it is trying different things. In the end when the opposition are winning 80-10 in hitouts, the dam wall is going to bust at some time, more than likely."
North Melbourne return home to play Geelong next Saturday night, with their approach to the ruck contests unclear. Clarkson is willing to look at all options as the Roos continue to battle with Xerri's suspension, with 2023 draftee Taylor Goad potentially in sight of making an AFL debut after dominating in the VFL with 47 hitouts.
"We'll have a look at [Goad]. I've been really pleased with his progress, and we gave that consideration this week if we give young 'Goady' a chance at it," Clarkson said.
"it was just like, wow, he'd be playing the form player of the competition at the present time. We want to give our young players every chance of having some success when they make their debuts.
"We have Geelong next week; it's a different opponent and different set of circumstances because now we have lost Coleman-Jones as well. We need to go to someone to play that sort of role for us, so we'll assess that during the week."
First bounce between North Melbourne and Geelong is at 7:35pm (AEST) on July 26.
