Hawthorn medicos are baffled by the latest injury to luckless Jon Patton which could end his AFL season.
Patton was injured in the opening quarter of Thursday’s twilight match against Essendon in Adelaide.
The key forward pulled up suddenly when running and departed the ground favouring his right leg.
Coach Alastair Clarkson says Hawthorn’s doctors couldn’t immediately diagnose the problem.
“We are not really sure,” Clarkson said after Hawthorn’s 16-point loss.
“Given how he was looking when it first happened, it looked like an achilles injury.
“But we are going to need to get it scanned to see what is wrong there because the doctors, when they assessed him, didn’t think there was a rupture to the achilles.”
Patton appears long odds to return for any of the Hawks’ last four games of the season.
The 27-year-old tore his right hamstring in round six this year – he was left in tears on the bench and missed the next six games – before returning against Port Adelaide last Saturday.
Patton had already undergone three knee reconstruction operations – two on his right knee, one on his left – before he was traded to Hawthorn from Greater Western Sydney at the end of the 2018 season.
He missed the entire 2019 campaign and Thursday’s game was just his sixth for the Hawks.
“He has had a tough run,” Clarkson said.
“And that is quite often the case with guys who miss a lot of footy with one ailment, then they try to get themselves back and going again.
“He worked really hard to get himself fit and ready to play, he played a couple of scrimmage games in the last month.
“And then he played quite played well against Port Adelaide, we were thinking ‘this is a good step in the right direction for him’.
“But it was nearly the first contest he went for tonight, he hurt himself.
“He will be disappointed but he has confronted setbacks like this before and he will just have to do it again.”