GEELONG coach Mark Thompson says his club has “no finish line” with defender Matthew Egan’s fitness after earlier in the day the Cats revealed the 24-year-old would miss the remainder of 2008.

On Tuesday morning the Cats issued a statement saying Egan, last year’s All-Australian centre-half back, would “require further surgery and not return to training again until January at the earliest”.

Egan’s troublesome navicular bone seems to be the cause of the problem, his right foot becoming sore in recent days after Thompson said his star had been “running pretty hard last week”.

And Thompson said while the reigning premiers were resigned to the fact they would continue to be without the powerfully-built backman for the rest of the year, his club would look for answers in a bid to treat Egan’s injury.

“Chris [club doctor Chris Bradshaw] comes back from London tonight and he’ll sit down with the medical team and they’ll discuss it all, debate it and hopefully come up with a plan that gets him right,” Thompson said.

“That’s their responsibility, to get him right.”

Thompson said Egan had been back running for about the past month.

Things had been going well, however the man Cats fans hoped would help Geelong push for back-to-back flags later this year realised something was wrong when he felt some discomfort in his foot.

“He was a little bit sore when he started running and he got a little bit better, a little more pain-free but then the pain started coming back as he did more,” Thompson said on Tuesday.

“As part of his management we went and scanned him yesterday and we’ve just got to back right off again.

“He’s going to see a specialist but it’s sore and it doesn’t look like it’s healing at the moment, so we’ve just got to take this next course of action, whatever it is.

“We don’t really know what it is, but we probably can assume that he’s not going to play this year.”

The Cats’ premiership coach said there was little anyone could say to Egan at a time like this although he was confident his young gun would bounce back.

“He’s had bad luck, there’s no doubt,” Thompson said.

“What do you say to a guy? He’s not the only bloke in the world that’s played football that’s been injured long-term.

“That’s a challenge, sure, but if anyone’s going to do it [overcome it], Matthew’s made of the right stuff … he’s not positive at the moment, obviously he’s just got some bad news but give him a week or two weeks [and] I’m sure he’ll be able to cope with whatever’s thrown at him.”

Asked if he was worried Egan might not ever recover from his injury, Thompson replied: “I don’t worry at all, no.”