BRISBANE Lions captain Tom Rockliff will miss up to six weeks after scans confirmed broken ribs and a punctured lung from an incident in Saturday night's loss against Collingwood.
Rockliff stayed in hospital overnight following an accidental knee from Magpie Travis Varcoe during the third quarter, and had the bad news confirmed on Sunday morning.
"He's got broken ribs and punctured his lung and will be out for up to six weeks," Lions football manager Dean Warren told AFL.com.au.
"The ribs will take a month to heal and we'll have to assess from there. The issue might revolve more around flying and just when he's able to do that."
The 25-year-old was captaining his first premiership game after taking over from Jed Adcock during the pre-season.
At the Lions' recovery session on Sunday morning, vice-captain Daniel Rich said they would miss far more than Rockliff's on-field production.
"He's obviously a superstar player but besides that it's his leadership on the field and during the week," Rich said.
"He's a fantastic leader by voice and by action – second to none.
"It's a shame to see such a good player and the leader of our side go down."
Rockliff is the heart and soul of the Lions and is coming off his best season, winning his first All Australian selection, second best and fairest award and topping the AFL for average disposals with 32.7 a game.
Rockliff will spend a second night in hospital on Sunday as medicos monitor the punctured lung.
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Lions coach Justin Leppitsch was unsure of the specifics post-match, but was resigned to losing Rockliff for a period of time.
"He doesn't go down for no reason. I knew it had to be something bad," Leppitsch said.
"He's a gun player, we'll miss him of course.
"It's going to test our leadership as much as anything because he's the best talker of our group, the best organiser of our group. It's going to be left to a few others to fill the void there."
After the hit, Rockliff struggled to walk or stand up straight to breathe before he eventually reached the interchange bench.
The midfielder was subbed out of the contest, with Sam Mayes replacing him.
