Stephen Coniglio has reason to grumble about a six-day AFL break, with the short turnaround forcing the vice-captain to miss Greater Western Sydney's clash with Gold Coast.
Coniglio was one of the Giants' best performers in their breakthrough win over Adelaide last Sunday but suffered delayed concussion from a head knock in the third quarter.
The gifted midfielder will now miss Saturday's match at Spotless Stadium, further testing the injury-hit expansion club's depth.
Coniglio will benefit from a fortnight off, with GWS having the bye next week, but that wasn't the factor that led to the club making a conservative call.
"If the game was Sunday he'd probably play," coach Leon Cameron told reporters.
"We were desperate for him to play. His last two weeks have been really, really good. He's our vice-captain.
"He wasn't far off. He ran around yesterday, ran around today ... thinking he's ready to go.
"You're probably a 15 per cent change to play on a six-day break (after a concussion). Everything has to go perfectly, unfortunately it didn't."
The upcoming bye will come at a good time for the Giants, who have endured a terrible run on the injury front during the first half of the season.
Stars Brett Deledio (calf), Toby Greene (foot), Tom Scully (ankle) and Zac Williams (achilles) remain unavailable, while on-baller Josh Kelly (groin) and ruckman Rory Lobb (knee) have had stop-start campaigns because of setbacks.
The injury crisis has also resulted in other players shouldering a bigger workload than they ordinarily would.
"There's an art to managing your players. I don't think any club has ever nailed it perfectly," Cameron said.
"It makes it harder when you have players on your injury list.
"It's really disappointing Stephen Coniglio isn't playing this week but does it help his body that he has two weeks off? Time will tell, sometimes you can have too much of a spell."
Cameron is more worried about defeating the Suns, who were hammered at home by Geelong last Saturday.
"They're coming off a loss they wouldn't be happy with. We were the same last week, sides respond," Cameron said.
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