FREMANTLE coach Lisa Webb has confirmed acting skipper Hayley Miller suffered a "significant" patella tendon injury in Fremantle's 37-point semi-final loss to Adelaide.
Miller played through pain in the second half, sitting in the goalsquare to help Fremantle roll through rotations in the stifling 35-degree heat.
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It caps off a wretched year for the star midfielder, who lost the captaincy to the injured Ange Stannett in pre-season, also missing three games through a reoccurrence of her persistent calf issues.
"It's fairly significant. A patella tendon obviously isn't nice. I asked her, and she's incredibly brave, she's always been a warrior for us, and she just said, 'whatever I need to do, I'll stay out there as much as I can,'" Webb said.
"She said, 'put me in the cage', so I put her at full-forward, and she managed to fight it out, which she's done all year. But obviously a disappointing one for her to not get back through the midfield.
"I think it was in a marking contest. I saw her go down and I thought it was a calf, which she had previously injured, but no, patella tendon. I think it was that one-on-one marking contest."
Webb also confirmed Gab Newton pushed through a corked hip to record a team-high 19 disposals and eight clearances, but the Dockers simply didn't have the ability to stick with the Crows for a full four quarters.
The second term did most of the damage, conceding 4.2 to one behind, while the Dockers only lost the final term by one point.
"They're a very good team, Adelaide, we knew we had to be at our best. We didn't make our opportunities again, which has obviously been a bit of a theme for us," Webb said.
"We were really well-prepared for them, I thought our girls presented fantastic, and they just took their moments better than us.
"We showed up really strong in that first quarter, but just couldn't kick the goals. But the girls just never gave up fighting, so I was super proud of them."
Adelaide coach Matthew Clarke gave credit to Fremantle for its pressure in the opening term, but was happy with the eventual team-wide effort, as well as an improvement in forward conversion.
"We're rapt, of course. I thought maybe the first five minutes, Fremantle just looked a bit sharper out of the blocks," Clarke said.
"But the group responded really well and worked their way through to break the game open in the second quarter. From there, it was a pretty even tussle, but we're really happy with that.
"I thought Caitlin Gould's game was outstanding, but she got no reward. Whereas other weeks, she's been clunking everything, and to their credit, Fremantle defended her really strongly.
"But her contest enabled our smalls to get into the game, that's probably something which hasn't happened a hell of a lot through the course of the season. So that was a nice aspect of the game. The front end was better."
Adelaide now face nemesis Brisbane in yet another preliminary final, the Lions a rare side who have the wood over the Crows as of late.
"They've got us a few times, but we've been around the mark. The good news is, we don't have to play a hell of a lot better, I believe," Clarke said.
"But clearly, they've got an outstanding record, they've got threats right across the ground. I reckon it'll be a pretty good game, and hopefully we can learn some of the lessons of previous encounters, including earlier this season, when we just didn't close out the last three or four minutes of that game as well as we would have liked.
"But the starting point will be bringing our contest and making sure we give ourselves a chance. As I said, all of the games we've played against them, we haven't always got the outcome. But in terms of the neutral observer, they've been a pretty good contest, so it should be something similar."
