COLLINGWOOD coach Craig McRae is hopeful star defender Darcy Moore has avoided a serious knee injury in Saturday night's dramatic win over Gold Coast.
McRae said Moore had hyperextended his left knee in the dying minutes of the match, but the Magpies would need scans to confirm the severity.
The news doesn't seem so good for young Sun Connor Budarick, with coach Stuart Dew all but confirming the defender had suffered a second ACL injury on the same knee.
SUNS v MAGPIES Full match coverage and stats
Moore landed awkwardly in a marking contest late in the five-point triumph, before being assisted from Metricon Stadium.
"It did (look dramatic), didn't it?" McRae said post-match.
"It's a hyper-extension, that's the first diagnosis. We'll have to wait for scans in the coming days and work out what that looks like.
"Fingers crossed it's a positive result for us."
McRae said it was a difficult final few minutes as his attention was split between caring for Moore and guiding his team home.
He watched the Magpies cling to the narrow win – their sixth on the trot – and take a step closer to playing finals football in September.
However, the first-year coach said his team was not good enough to look that far ahead.
"This game is so close," he said.
"You see, every game, bottom eight beating top eight. It's small margins. We can ill-afford to take our eye off the ball in getting better.
"It's been our motto all year, let's keep getting better every day. It doesn't matter who we play, we want to play a certain way and we get a chance to do that (against North Melbourne) next week too."
Dew was left to lick his wounds as the Suns watched a 14-point final-quarter lead disappear.
The injury to Budarick is another big blow for a backline that is already missing Wil Powell (ankle) and Lachie Weller (knee) for the rest of the season.
The 21-year-old ruptured his ACL in round two, 2021.
"It doesn't look great for his knee," Dew said.
"We're not sure, obviously, but unfortunately for Connor it didn't look great.
"We feel for Connor because he's worked so hard, he's an important member of our side. He's young. He's got a big future ahead of him. He'll fight back. He's a fighter.
"He's clearly a little bit emotional at the moment, and that's totally understandable."
Ben Ainsworth was in a "precautionary" moonboot post-match after leaving the field late with a lower leg injury.
Dew said Gold Coast let the match slip, but was not giving up hope on playing finals, despite its 7-8 record now two wins outside the top eight.
"There's still a lot of footy to be played, and we look forward to playing Richmond next week," he said.
"We'll analyse that game and look where we can get better.
"It's disappointing, we've cost ourselves, clearly. We lacked composure at times.
"Unfortunately, one team's got to win, but we have to take responsibility for what we can control and I didn't think we did that well enough."
