Essendon forward Orazio Fantasia's AFL season is all but over, the club announcing on Tuesday he will miss up to six weeks with a hamstring injury.
Fantasia suffered the injury in the first quarter of Saturday's win over Carlton and will need his side to make a deep finals run to feature again at AFL level this year.
"Obviously at the time it looked like quite a serious hamstring (injury)," performance manager Justin Crow said.
"And what the scans show us is that it's a grade two-plus, which means he's going to miss five to six weeks.
"Obviously we'll need everything to go right and we'll start to progress him up as he's able over the coming week."
The news is better for full-forward Joe Daniher who is set to face Adelaide at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night despite a scary incident against the Blues.
"His knee hyper-extended and sometimes when that happens you can get some really bad injuries," Crow said.
"But fortunately for Joe and us he got away with it.
"He's a little bit sore in his knee but he was able to play out the game. He's looking pretty good this week and he'll train (on Wednesday)."
Daniher leads the race for this season's Coleman Medal.
James Kelly and Andy McGrath were rested last week but will return to face the ladder-leading Crows.
Star midfielder Zach Merrett will miss as he serves a one-match ban for striking Carlton's Lachie Plowman.
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