POWER star Chad Cornes might soon be forced to go back under the knife; not to have his troublesome finger lopped off, but rather to correct another worsening injury.

After the game on Sunday night, coach Mark Williams hinted Cornes had a more pressing injury concern than his broken finger, which he revealed on Monday was a nagging knee complaint.

Port Adelaide was subjected to an early morning beach session at Glenelg on Monday morning, but Cornes was unable to join his teammates in the run.

“Chad has a cartilage problem in his knee and he’s probably had it for three years. It comes and goes, he gets over it and it slips in and out,” Williams said.

“You can give it an operation, without any doubt, but at the end of the year, there is nothing wrong with it and you let it go. Unfortunately it’s flared up over the past few weeks and as time goes by it’s unfair for Chad.

“As always when you cross the white line everyone is 100 per cent and people are asking, ‘what the hell is going wrong?  Or is something wrong with him?’ because he’s not playing well, but to be fair to Chad, he puts his hand up and wants to play every week.”

Cornes admitted Sunday night’s performance, where he was well held by fellow Glenelg junior Bryce Gibbs, was probably his ‘worst-ever’ and Williams said the club would have to look seriously at what is in, both the club and Cornes’ best interests.

“It could come good this week or it might be that he needs four or five weeks off with surgery. It’s more possible [that he’ll need surgery] than remote,” Williams said.

“I’ll leave it in the surgeon and the doctors’ hands. There’s no doubt they are the experts. In consultation with them and Chad, we’ll go through it.

“Without doubt, our number one focus is always on the player and their wellbeing. It would be easy to say to people that aren’t in footy, ‘well, the number one thing is getting it done’, but there can be complications with any operation and I think with knees you tend to leave cartilages alone for as long as you can without damaging them.”

Paul Stewart was last night discharged from hospital and cleared of any injury to his neck, but is rated no better than a ‘test’ to be available for the game against Geelong next Sunday. Injured forward Brett Ebert is also rated a test, but club officials say he’s more likely than not, to resume from a two-week ankle injury.

Shaun Burgoyne will return from suspension and tall forward Damon White could finally play his long-awaited 50th AFL game, in place of Toby Thurstans, who will miss four-five weeks with a knee strain.

“Damon played really well in the pre-season and it’s just about trying to get the right mix of talls in defence. Is Paul Stewart going to play? Damon certainly is a possibility,” Williams said.

“Unfortunately, I think he’s been played mostly in the forward line at North Adelaide, but he practises both ends of the ground and goes to both lines’ [forward and back] meetings during the week, so he’s very much up with it.