- Christian Petracca was rushed to hospital on Monday
- The Melbourne star suffered a nasty rib injury
- He somehow played on before succumbing
Melbourne star Christian Petracca was rushed to hospital after succumbing to a nasty rib injury during the King’s Birthday match against Collingwood.
Petracca took a knee to the ribs from Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore during a marking contest just before quarter-time of Monday’s match.
The explosive midfielder lay on the MCG pitch for several minutes and received medical attention as the players headed to the quarter-time huddles.
‘He was immediately in pain and went to the ground. Eventually he got up and tried to make his way to the quarter-time group, but he was in so much discomfort that he had to break away from the quarter-time group and go down to the rooms,” Channel 7 commentator Cameron Ling said from the boundary. .
‘There’s a lot of pain there. You can see. Not nice at all. Unfortunately, such a vision makes you think of broken ribs.’
Christian Petracca suffered a nasty rib injury during the King’s Birthday match
He suffered a blow to the ribs at the end of the first semester, but continued to play remarkably
Petracca eventually stood up, but seemed to be in terror as he grabbed the left side of his ribs and slowly walked from the ground to the demons’ chambers.
He had been one of Melbourne’s better players to that point, with eight disposals.
Petracca made a notable return for the second quarter and tried to fight through, but struggled to reach top speed and seemed unwilling to kick the ball.
“This is extraordinary, he barely crawled off the ground at quarter time,” said Tim Watson.
“He did a few runs and shook his head. I could only take that as ‘no, there is no pain’. I don’t know, that should be so painful,” Ling added.
He added another five disposals, including four handballs, for the quarter but never looked at them himself.
‘As soon as he kicked that, he bent over in pain. He is so brave at this moment, but he is not comfortable there at all. I don’t know how much longer he can last,” Ling said.
Watson added, “Then I look at Petracca behind the play. He moves very slowly. He sits hunched over most of the time. He has a lot of pain.’
He was eventually knocked out and rushed to hospital for scans
Petracca was substituted off the ground for Jack Billings just before the start of the third quarter.
The Demons will now wait nervously for confirmation of the severity of Petracca’s injury after he was taken to hospital for further assessment.
However, he has extra time to recover with the Demons’ bye this weekend.
Melbourne missed Petracca dearly as Collingwood secured a convincing 38-point victory.