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Buddy's 300th on hold; McVeigh reinjured

3 minute read

Veteran Sydney defender Jarrad McVeigh is out for a month with a calf injury and Lance Franklin may have to wait three more rounds to play his 300th AFL game.

JARRAD MCVEIGH
JARRAD MCVEIGH Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Lance Franklin's 300th AFL game could have to wait for three more rounds while Sydney's most experienced player, Jarrad McVeigh, will be out for another month after suffering a calf injury.

Superstar Franklin has been stuck on 299 games for the past three weeks due to a hamstring injury.

Swans coach Longmire said on Monday Franklin won't play in Saturday's clash with Fremantle in Perth and is unlikely to be ready for the following week's home match against Geelong, meaning his milestone appearance could be away to local rivals GWS.

He said Franklin had been running, doing rehab and strengthening his hamstring, but hadn't been involved in any training sessions and might start working with a football next week.

'We need to get a bit more work into him before we put him out there and expose him at training let alone games," Longmire said.

'We're mindful of that because it's a re-do of his injury earlier in the year.

"We're not going to push him back at the risk of another re-injury."

Defender McVeigh, who has played just five of his 324 games this season, was hurt in a NEAFL match last weekend.

"He got into the last quarter and pulled up sore in his calf and had it scanned this morning," Swans' coach John Longmire said.

McVeigh, 34, who is third on the Swans' all-time appearances list, hasn't played a senior game since round 12 because of a hamstring injury and made his return in the reserves against Southport last Saturday.

He has had a number of soft tissue injuries in recent years.

"He's pretty resilient but I think even this is starting to test him a bit," Longmire said.

He said McVeigh wasn't the type to mope about this misfortune and expected his first thought would be to try and play again this season.

Asked what the latest injury meant for McVeigh's future beyond this year Longmire said: "He knows his football really well Macca, so we'll sit down over the next week or so and have a chat about it and work out where to from here."

With their three most senior ruckmen all recovering from injury, Sydney may look at promoting one of two rookies, Michael Knoll and Joel Amartey, to play a first senior game against a Fremantle side that could field the giant and vastly experienced Aaron Sandilands.

'"Whether they've done enough to go on to the plane to Perth this week we're not sure just yet, we understand that they are both very raw," Longmire said.

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