PORT ADELAIDE "strongly suspects" forward Robbie Gray has ruptured his ACL, following a horrific incident in the Power's 24-point loss to Collingwood at Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
With 30 seconds remaining in the last term, Gray was impeded in a marking contest and hyper-extended his knee, which was wrenched in a sickening direction when landing.
The club said scans on Monday should confirm the inevitable and Power coach Matthew Primus said it was shattering news for the 24-year-old and the club.
"Yeah, look, not good news,"Primus said.
"Robbie’s obviously a very important player of our future, but he’ll find his way back, and we'll miss his presence this year."
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The Power also virtually ruled out the possibility of LARS treatment and will instead focus on the traditional knee reconstruction if scans confirm the long-term knee injury.
Up until the fateful last few seconds, in which he was stretchered off in obvious discomfort, Gray had kicked two goals and collected 17 possessions to be one of his club's best
Primus said players of Gray's ilk and type don't come around all that often.
"He's different to anyone we've got, but we've got some guys in the SANFL who are in some form and, they’re different to Robbie, we'll try to find someone to fill the breach," he said.
[ Related: Fears For Robbie's Knee ]
Primus lamented some "fundamental errors" from his side, which prevented them from proceeding any further than the 19-point buffer they reached either side of half time.
"It's a similar story to what I've said the last couple of weeks," he said.
"We're getting sick and tired of saying that and reviewing that, so we've got to keep, either finding out why or bringing in the right people to make sure these fundamental things don't happen.
"But probably, the overall picture is that it's a developing group and they're going to make blues.
"So we need to keep educating them because we're not a top four team where we can afford to make those mistakes and still win games."
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The Power were clearly beaten in the tackle count (48-72) and Primus said it was all about effort when putting pressure on the opposition.
"Collingwood's intensity, as we spoke all week to our playing group, was through the roof and I thought [the Pies] tackled with real intent in the first quarter and made us cough the ball up," he said.
"It's an issue for us, because we need more tackles than what we're getting to help us keep the ball in tight.
"Tackling is effort level, to the nth degree it's technique, but majority of the time it's effort."
Port Adelaide face Adelaide in Showdown XXII (32) next Sunday, and Primus believes it will be a good test for the side.
"We've played some very tough teams in the last month, and we're well aware of that," Primus said
"We think we've acquitted ourselves well but we've had chances to win all of those games, and we’ve only won one of them.
"We look forward to making sure we, as a group, are resilient to get ourselves up to play at the level that we have in the last four weeks.
"And, if we continue to do that there will be a tipping point and we’ll start winning some games."
Ben Guthrie is a reporter for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter - @AFL_BenGuthrie
