AFTER being subbed out against Port Adelaide, I'm expecting Western Bulldogs' captain Ryan Griffen to miss at least 2-3 weeks with a recurrent of his pre-season back injury.
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He was subbed out of Saturday's game after his whole back seized up and went into spasm when he landed awkwardly.
In the pre-season, Griffen had an inflamed disc that sets off this type of problem and he missed 6-8 weeks.
It took a long time for the inflammation and the disc pain to go away, and this is a reactivation of a similar problem.
You'd have to be really concerned about how quickly it's going to settle down, given his age and the fact it's a similar thing to what he had before.
You just can't run, lift weights and do much at all when you have disc pain.
The Bulldogs will be hoping 2-3 weeks is all it's going to be, but it could take longer.
North Melbourne's Robbie Tarrant has had a wretched few years with the continuing stress problems in his shin, which has been diagnosed as stress reaction in the bone.
The muscles get involved as well and it seems he can't get up to the load of training that's required to play games.
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There's plenty of frustration with this tibial stress pain coming back again.
I think the club's had some difficulty in getting the diagnosis precisely done – there was one concern that he had a pinched nerve.
We know that shin pain in overload training happens, but stress fractures once they go away shouldn't come back unless there's still issues.
Tarrant pulled up sore from Saturday's training and now they're contemplating exploring inside the leg to work out what the muscle load is and perhaps release some of the pressure off the bone.
If that happened, he wouldn't play again this year.
Rhyce Shaw could be missing for at least three weeks after rolling his ankle the opposite way to the standard sprain – the medial, or the inner side of the ankle – which takes a bit longer to get better.
He was in a contest, slipped over and his foot got trapped under his own body weight.
It's not as severe as Dan Hannebery but Shaw was on crutches at the end of the game.
It's also likely Kurt Tippett will miss another week after his knee arthroscope.
We know Andrew Swallow is coming back off Achilles tendon surgery and was just starting to get back into some form.
He got caught in a tackle awkwardly and his medial ligament of his knee on the left side got sprained.
It wasn't a high-grade sprain but he had to come off. He's probably 50-50 this week.
The scan has shown no structural damage but what that means is there's not a big tear – he's still got swelling and soreness on the medial side of his knee.
You can strap them up and play but there's a great risk it will be aggravated.
North Melbourne has got the dilemma of just trying to give Swallow the week off to get it under control but if he gets a lot of treatment and straps it up he might be able to play.
While Robbie Nahas is having a good season at North, he won't get back this season after surgery on his shoulder.
It was a rather dramatic shoulder injury – it was the collarbone and the AC joint that separated when he was tackled.
Jack Martin had the same thing in round one this year and Jordan Roughead as well, and they both took about 10-12 weeks to come back so it's unlikely he'll play again in 2014.
Mathew Stokes was another ankle injury out of the weekend – more of a traditional one.
His foot got caught under a tackle and he couldn't get it out. Geelong has done the right and had him out of the game after it swelled up pretty badly.
The Cats are expecting Stokes to be limited for at least two weeks. He may miss three depending on how he goes and Geelong usually takes a conservative approach with injury.
Harry Taylor is a 50-50 prospect to come back from the knee injury that kept him from the loss to the Suns.
For Carlton, Marc Murphy developed some tightness in the hamstring, which is hopefully nerve related.
While he didn't have a big tear or rupture, they often restrict you the following week.
While he didn't play against Greater Western Sydney, I think Murphy will be limited this week but is a reasonable chance he won't miss again.
Murphy's luckless teammate Simon White re-injured his left knee on the medial side again and will need a few weeks to settle down.
White has a long history of having ruptured his medial side ligaments and needing surgery, and he had problems with the repair and had a LARS ligament put in the outside of the knee.
Unfortunately this knee rejected the LARS ligament so it was taken out and it took him a long time to get over before he had a vertebrae injury in his neck last year.
He was coming back off a lot of interruptions.
The ligament we're talking about has already been operated on so it's thickened and scarred, and could take a while to settle down.
It's starting to look like Sam Fisher won't play seniors any time soon after developing back tightness in a VFL game.
The St Kilda veteran struggled with back soreness early in the season and then hamstring troubles.
He's losing the momentum of football and will settle quickly but is unlikely to play seniors at all in at least the next month.
Shaun Hampson should be right to face St Kilda after rolling his ankle against the Swans.
The Richmond ruckman came off the ground and had treatment but played out the game, and I expect he'll get plenty of work and strapping this week.
Dan Jackson is also a chance to come back from a hip flexor problem.
However, I'm not expecting the Tigers to regain Chris Newman after he missed on the weekend with a groin.
There was some bad news for Melbourne with Daniel Cross fracturing his lower leg and Shannon Byrnes looking set to miss the rest of the season with a foot problem.
Cross fractured his leg against the Kangaroos late in the game and will miss around six weeks.
Byrnes' foot injury flared up in the VFL on the weekend.
There were a few concussions in round 14. Tom Langdon was subbed out against Collingwood, David McKay at Adelaide and Jarrad Grant suffered a badly broken nose at the Bulldogs.
Traditionally, players tend to miss the following week so I think they're all in serious doubt.
Gold Coast might also be without Brandon Matera after he strained his adductor against the Cats.
However, Tyson Goldsack should return for Collingwood against Carlton after missing two games with a knee but Nick Maxwell will miss at least one more with a calf.
