The season of mercurial Suns forward Izak Rankine appears over, with the 22-year-old ruled out of Gold Coast's season-ending fixture against bottom-placed North Melbourne on Saturday afternoon.
Rankine hurt his left shoulder following a tackle completed by Geelong's Tom Atkins, with the goalsneak landing heavily on his already strapped shoulder.
After a slow start by his lofty standards, Rankine has blossomed into the star small forward piece the Suns have been looking for, booting 21 goals in his last eleven games, including bags of three against Adelaide, Port Adelaide, and West Coast, along with a four-goal haul in Round 16 against Collingwood.
Speaking to the media ahead of his side's date with the Roos, head coach Stuart Dew stated that the former number three pick appears destined to go under the knife.
"He's unlikely (to play) given he hasn't trained, and we've got to take into account the risk factor because he's had a couple of incidents in games and a couple at training," Dew said of the bottle blonde's prospects.
"We won't take a risk with him, obviously, because it's likely he'll need an operation at the end of the year."
Whilst Rankine has enjoyed an excellent second half of the year, his future with the club remains in the balance, with his hometown team, the Adelaide Crows reportedly offering him a five-year $800,000 per season to cross back to the City of Churches.
Rankine has played 48 games booting 57 goals for the Suns.
Despite missing out on a maiden finals appearance in 2022, the Suns have an opportunity to equal their most successful win-loss record across the course of their brief history.
At the present, the club's high-water mark currently sits at 10-12, a feat achieved in 2014 during the height of the Gary Ablett era.
