Fremantle's young season has gone from bad to worse, with former skipper Nat Fyfe an early scratching from next Sunday's must-win Western Derby.
On-field, the Dockers have failed to live up to any of their early hype, falling to an 0-2 start after losses to St Kilda and North Melbourne over the opening fortnight.
The latest defeat, a controversial one-point loss to the Roos in Perth, sees Fremantle sit well off the pace, having scored just 124 points in eight quarters of football.
While originally selected in the Dockers' lineup to do battle with North Melbourne, Fyfe became a late out for the loss, with a sore foot seeing Jye Amiss replace the dual Brownlow medallist on the team sheet.
Speaking in the wake of the thrilling defeat, Fremantle head coach Justin Longmuir claimed that his superstar was "frustrated" by this latest setback and would require "a bit of a rest".
"He's been carrying a plantar fascia for a while, and it just didn't react to last week's game, and it pulled up really sore," Longmuir said.
"He probably needs a bit of a rest. He'll be off legs a little bit to try to maximise a bit of a rest, but he probably needs another week just to calm it down.
"He's frustrated by this, but he sees it as a little speed hump and if he gets this right the rest of his body is holding up really well and he can have a long crack at it."
Injury setbacks have become an unwanted trademark of Fyfe's career, with the three-time All-Australian failing to complete a full campaign across any of his 14 seasons in purple.
Since the outbreak of COVID, Fyfe has featured on just 37 occasions for his beloved Dockers, a disappointing fact of life that has sent the club champion to some dark places.
During a revealing interview withย ABC Sport in February, the midfielder-turned-forward explained how injury setbacks had seen him take "a good hard look at rock bottom".ย
Fyfe's latest setback now means that he won't have faced the Eagles in a Derby clash since Round 7 of the 2021 season.
