CAMERON Delaney's 2014 season could be over after just half a VFL game, with the North Melbourne key defender struggling to shake a toe injury that's dogged him since August last year.
Delaney's misfortune continues a bad run of injuries for the Roos in 2014.
Robbie Tarrant (tibia stress reaction) and Robin Nahas (shoulder) are also in danger of missing the rest of the season, while Daniel Wells (foot) Nathan Grima (foot), Joel Tippett (pectoral), Taylor Garner (hamstring) and Jamie Macmillan (broken fibula) have all been sidelined for long stretches.
Delaney had surgery on his big left toe late last year after injuring it against Melbourne in round 18.
After a conservative rehabilitation program, he returned in the VFL with North Ballarat two weeks ago, coming on after half-time and playing the final two quarters.
But Delaney pulled up sore after the match and has not trained or played since.
North football director Geoff Walsh told AFL.com.au on Thursday that Delaney's injury was "bone-related" and the club was seeking "a third opinion" from a medical specialist in the hope the 22-year-old could avoid further surgery.
Walsh said Delaney's season would almost certainly be over if surgery ended up being his only option.
"We obviously don't want to take the big step of any further surgical intervention until we're 100 per cent sure that's what we should do," Walsh said.
"So we're just seeking another opinion from a specialist that we haven't consulted before.
"We're just trying to make sure that if we have to intervene from a surgical point of view that that's the only way to go."
Delaney, 22, has played just six games since North took him with pick No.69 in the 2010 national draft.
He played five of those games in the first 10 rounds of his second season, 2012, but injury has not been kind to him since.
Hip problems troubled him early in 2013 and, after working his way back to form and fitness in the VFL, he suffered his toe injury in his first game back in the North senior team.
Delaney had a game-high 12 marks (four contested) against the Demons in that round 18 game.
North's faith in Delaney was underlined late in August 2012, when it signed the then-second-year player to the end of 2015.
Unfortunately for the Roos, Delaney is one of a trio of young North key-position players whose development has been stymied by injury.
Tarrant, 25, has played just 39 games in seven seasons, a litany of shoulder injuries disrupting his early years at North before his current tibia problems hit.
And Tom Curran, 20, has been limited to six senior VFL games in two-and-a-half seasons at North, having undergone surgery on three separate occasions for stress fractures in his right navicular bone (foot).
