Melbourne superstar Christian Petracca remains in hospital with a punctured lung and a lacerated spleen suffered in a heavy collision in his team’s King’s Birthday loss to Collingwood on Monday.
Petracca took a knee to his ribs from Magpie captain Darcy Moore just before the quarter-time siren and was sent down into the rooms at the break and assessed.
He returned to the field and played on for 20 minutes but was subbed out early in the third quarter and sent from the ground to hospital via ambulance for scans, with coach Simon Goodwin hopeful his superstar midfielder had suffered only cracked ribs.
But the 28-year-old remained in hospital for further observation on Monday night and the significant injuries he suffered that could sideline for a long period of time were revealed.
According to reports, Petracca has four broken ribs, lacerations to the spleen, plus a small puncture in the lung.
After the match, Goodwin defended the club medical staff’s decision to send Petracca back on the ground.
“Like anything with a broken rib, or a cracked rib, you certainly get some pain relief and see how you can go on. It’s standard process when you’re working through these type of injuries,” he said post-match on Monday.
“It was pretty evident that he wasn’t going to be able to play on, so we just pulled it straight away at halftime.”
One of the most recent AFL players to suffer a lacerated spleen, Collingwood’s Mason Cox, spent six weeks on the sidelines that could be a similar timeframe confronting Petracca, who is arguably Melbourne’s second most important player behind captain Max Gawn.
Melbourne fell to 10th after the loss to the Magpies and has the bye this weekend before a clash with North Melbourne on June 22 and a crucial clash against Brisbane at the Gabba.